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| PHOTOGRAPHED BY HELEN KUDRICH |
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Surayud Chulanont
A soldier who answered to the people
In the late 1960s, when Surayud Chulanont was leading a platoon of Thai soldiers against communist insurgents in the country's northeastern provinces, he was plagued by a recurring vision in which he encountered a band of guerrillas at close range. In it, after a spell of bloody fighting the rebels fled into the forest. Surayud gave chase, but paused over a body sprawled face down in a pool of blood. He turned over the corpse and realized he'd killed his own father.
Payom Chulanont, the father, was a former soldier who had left the army and his family to become a rebel leader. Surayud, now 59, was a teenager in cadet training school the last time his father had visited the family home. It was a strained reunion, during which Payom explained that he had lost faith in the army because he believed it was more concerned with enriching itself and cementing its influence than protecting the weak and powerless. Though they were later adversaries, Surayud credits his father with providing a foundation for his own beliefs about what it means to be a soldier and what role the military should play in Thailand. "He taught me how to be a good officer," Surayud says. "He taught me how to be a good citizen of this country." Those lessons drove Surayud to become perhaps the most important Thai military figure of the modern era. No man has done more to modernize and professionalize the Thai army and, despite significant—and lasting—resistance, infuse it with the ideals he learned from Payom.
During the insurgency, and for decades afterward, the military was notorious for interfering in elections, staging coups and abusing human rights with impunity. Reports of involvement in drug, weapon, timber and people smuggling were common. Surayud managed to maintain a spit-shined reputation, but his journey was not without controversy. On May 17, 1992, soldiers fired on a crowd of pro-democracy protesters in Bangkok, killing 52 and wounding more than 100. Surayud was then commander of the élite special forces. He had been lobbying his superiors to resolve the situation without using force, but his men had also been seen dragging protesters through the lobby of the Royal Hotel. Days later he told a national television audience that he deplored the loss of life and that he had not given any orders to shoot, an account that was never disputed. Still, the realization that he couldn't prevent the carnage crystallized decidedly contrarian views that had been gelling since he last saw his father: "It convinced me that the army should never be involved in politics."
By 1997, however, he had been assigned a desk job with few duties and was considering retirement. But the then Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, who wanted to reform Thailand's army, asked Surayud to become commander in chief. Surayud accepted and immediately targeted what he calls the "military Mafia," transferring corrupt soldiers out of positions of influence or forcing them out of the service altogether. "I've made enemies," he acknowledges, "but I believe in the rule of law." While the task is far from over, even critics recognize his impact.
On the tactical front, he created rapid-response units to deal with threats along Thailand's borders, using them to fend off incursions by Burmese troops and ethnic Wa guerrillas seeking to attack refugee camps in Thailand or flood the country with drugs. He acted swiftly and harshly against armed infiltrators who harmed Thai citizens. But he also ended a policy of pushing refugees, especially ethnic Karens, back into Burma and into the jaws of the Burmese army. "He's been a friend to us," says Pastor Robert Htway of the Karen Refugee Committee. Surayud has also sought in several instances to resolve potential bloodbaths with negotiated surrenders, such as in a 2001 standoff with the so-called God's Army during which Thai forces surrounded rebels who had killed six Thai citizens, cut off their supplies and waited for them to give up.
Under his term the army joined the U.N. peacekeeping effort in East Timor, the first time Thai soldiers had ever taken part in such a mission (they're performing similar duties in Aceh and will soon be dispatched to Afghanistan). Though Surayud regrets he was never able to win salary increases for his soldiers, he says he's proud that he managed to procure better rations, housing and equipment for them. For Thailand, his biggest accomplishment was the near-wholesale refurbishment of the military's public image. "He made people trust and believe in the army," says Adul Khiewboriboon, who has every reason not to. His son was killed during the crackdown on the 1992 demonstrations, but now he says, "Because of Surayud, we no longer fear our own soldiers."
Such plaudits did not translate into job security, however. Surayud clashed with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra due to the latter's promotion of a looser, more business-friendly approach to Burma's military junta. Last August the PM named Surayud supreme commander—a loftier but less influential post—and installed loyalists into the army's top ranks. The move, says Sunai Phasuk of Forum Asia, was "a major setback for political reform and the move to separate the armed forces from politics." Officers Surayud had sidelined for suspected misconduct were recalled, but he refused to criticize Thaksin—to do so would constitute military meddling in politics.
This October, Surayud faces mandatory retirement. Despite the unfinished business, he'll take with him praise from an uncommon coalition of fellow soldiers, human-rights activists, editorialists and defense analysts. There are periodic calls for the man who tried to remove the military from politics to enter the political arena himself. Surayud doesn't rule it out, but for now he plans to trade in his fatigues for saffron robes and become a Buddhist monk. After so many battles, he wants to seek peace.
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