PINKLAO BRIDGE – In a symbolic gesture that he hopes will “bring closure,” a teary-eyed Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya threw his PAD scrapbook into the Chao Praya River today.
The scrapbook, which contained 72 pages of photographs, newspaper clippings, hand-written notes, and small personal mementos, documented the tumultuous five-year relationship Kasit had with the People’s Alliance For Democracy from 2005-2010.
“I’ll never forget the PAD,” said a solemn Kasit as he stood on the Pinklao Bridge at 6am this morning, his greying hair and trench coat tails waving in the cold morning breeze. “But it’s time to move on. For both of us.”
Kasit’s association with the yellow-shirted, monarchist conservative group started during the pre-coup days of the Thaksin Shinawatra administration, when he was serving as ambassador to the US. Despite officially representing the government that the PAD was protesting against, Kasit says he found the PAD immediately attractive.
“They were the bad boys of the political scene,” he said. “Rebels with their own rules. Even as I was assuring Washington that they were a minor movement, my heart was out there on Rajdamnoen, yelling into the night sky.”
After the September 2006 coup, Kasit spent a few months unattached, doing some advisory work with the Senate. But when the pro-Thaksin party won subsequent elections, Kasit knew that he couldn’t go back to civil service with his former partners. “Every day I’d watch the PAD on TV,” he said. “And when they took over the airport in 2008, something in me snapped. I pulled off my tie, put on a yellow shirt, and just ran into their arms.”
The Foreign Minister’s weeks with the PAD at Suvarnabhumi has been given much press attention, but Kasit insists no one really understands how special they were. “The passionate speeches, the physical unity, endless days turning into endless nights… I felt alive for the first time,” he recalls. “I really thought the PAD was the One.”
The relationship took a seemingly auspicious turn in 2009 when the Democrat Party took power in a military-backed coalition. Kasit, a long-time registered Democrat, was assigned the Foreign Minister job despite protests from the opposition regarding his participation in the airport incident. “We felt like it was finally our time,” he said. “After months of having nothing to offer the PAD but my love, now I could finally be the man they desired.”
According to Kasit, the first year was “heavenly,” acting as a spokesperson for the Thai government in condemning Thaksin and his followers, and an apologist for the PAD’s actions. Although officially no longer a PAD member, Kasit was seen as their most important advocate.
But the minister-activist marriage turned sour following the crackdown on the red-shirted UDD in May 2010, when the PAD began to question the Democrat coalition’s legitimacy and attack Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva for ignoring PAD policy demands. “It was a hundred little things,” remembers Kasit. “Flood relief here, Constitutional amendments there, and before you know it people’s feelings get hurt and you’re not communicating anymore.”
When asked to explain how it went wrong, Kasit was philosophical. “People change,” he said, looking out over the calm water of the river. “Maybe it was me, I don’t know. But the PAD became very demanding, jealous even. They accused me of loving Abhisit more than them. I said he was just my boss but they never believed me.”
“They even called me a sell-out,” he said. “That hurt.”
Around that time the PAD stopped answering Kasit’s calls and text messages, and un-friended him on Facebook.
The final straw came last month when the PAD demanded Kasit’s resignation along with Abhisit’s, backing the Thai Patriot Network’s accusations that the two had surrendered Thai soil to the enemy.
“They’re not the PAD I fell in love with,” said Kasit. “That youthful idealism is gone. Everything is personal and paranoid with them. I can’t even talk to them anymore.”
Kasit insists he wishes the PAD well. “I still want them to be happy, but with another Foreign Minister who maybe understands their needs better.”
Taking one last look through the pages of his scrapbook, Kasit then took a deep breath and hurled it over the railing, where it spiraled down to the dark water and floated away.
“We’ll always have Suvarnabhumi,” he said before walking away.
