Former Thai foreign minister, ASEAN chief Surin Pitsuwan dies at 68

  

KYODO NEWS - Nov 30, 2017 - 21:52 | All, World

Former Thai Foreign Minister and ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan, who was one of his country's most charismatic and dynamic diplomats, died of a heart attack on Thursday, according to a fellow Democrat Party member. He was 68.

According to Thepthai Senpong, Surin collapsed in the morning and was rushed to the city's Ramkhamhaeng Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Another source said he suffered cardiac arrest at home and could not be revived in ambulance.

A religious ceremony for Surin -- a Harvard-educated professor, ex-parliamentarian and Muslim who served as foreign minister of the predominantly Buddhist country from 1997 to 2001 -- will take place Friday at the mosque in Nonthaburi Province.



Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha called his death a great loss for Thailand.

Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, under whose premiership Surin headed up the Foreign Ministry, called his passing a great loss not only for the party but also for the nation and the world.

Surin, the son of an Islamic teacher, hailed from the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat.

After studying political science at prestigious Thammasat University in Bangkok, he spent many years engaged in studies and research in the United States, receiving his M.A. in 1974 and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1982.

Surin began his academic career as a professor at Thammasat, where he taught for over a decade, while also working as a columnist for the Bangkok Post and The Nation, Thailand's two leading English-language dailies.

He entered the political arena in 1986 when he was elected as a Democrat member of the House of Representatives.

Moving to government, he served during the 1990s as Thailand's deputy foreign minister and foreign minister, initiating the policy of "flexible engagement" to deal with Myanmar after ASEAN accepted Myanmar into the group in 1997 amid condemnation from many countries about its abysmal human rights situation and military rule.

In 2008, he took the helm of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for a four-year term, during which he was widely recognized for his competence in spearheading ASEAN's humanitarian efforts after Myanmar was devastated by Cyclone Nargis that same year and in engaging in international efforts to restore law and order in East Timor.

An official ASEAN statement distributed via social media expressed "sincere condolences" on the loss of Surin. "We are deeply saddened to know that Dr. Surin Pitsuwan passed away today. It is a big loss to Thailand and the ASEAN community," it said.

Thai Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Busadee Santipitaks also mourned his loss, while praising him for having "played a key role in the conduct of Thailand's foreign policy."

Since then, Surin had continued to be engaged in the promotion of regional integration, educational and political reform efforts in Thailand, and was a frequent speaker at various international conferences.

He was president of the Future Innovative Thailand Institute, which is connected to the Democratic Party.

Surin had long advocated ASEAN taking a role in containing or resolving regional conflicts, such as it did in Cambodia in the early and late 1990s, and East Timor in 1999, and in Aceh, Indonesia, in the early and late 2000s, to prevent them from escalating further.

In recent months, he had called on ASEAN to exercise "effective leadership" in dealing with the humanitarian catastrophe in Myanmar's Rakhine State and just across the border in Bangladesh to which more than 620,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees have fled violence since late August.

In an opinion piece published in the Bangkok Post on Sept. 6, he urged ASEAN to "act fast" to prevent the carnage from deteriorating and escalating into regional tensions. "The world is watching. ASEAN'S credibility and profile are hanging in the balance," he said.

Nov 30, 2017 | KYODO NEWS