Source - Business Day Website (Eng)
May 29, 2006


BANGKOK – UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Friday praised Thailand’s king for his development projects tackling a range of social problems, ahead of a royal audience to present him with an award for his work.

Annan, who arrived in Thailand late Thursday, said he would present King Bhumibol Adulyadej with a lifetime achievement award from the UN Development Program in recognition of his work, ahead of the monarch’s 60th anniversary on the throne next month.

“His majesty’s rural development projects have benefited millions of people across Thailand,” Annan said in a speech at Thailand’s foreign ministry.

“As the world’s ’Development King’, his majesty reached out to the poorest and the most vulnerable people of Thailand, listened to their problems, and empowered them to take their lives into their own hands,” he said.

Thais revere the king with an almost god-like devotion, earned in large part because of the thousands of projects he sponsors to support small farms, manage water supplies, and prevent floods and droughts.

The king also sponsors health and educational programs around the country, while encouraging Thais to resist the temptations of consumerism as the economy expanded rapidly in the 1990s.

Annan was due to bestow the award during an audience with the king later Friday in his seaside palace in the resort town of Hua Hin.

Before travelling to meet the king, Annan is set to hold talks with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and to meet with UN staff in Bangkok.

Thailand is Annan’s last stop on a five-nation Asian tour.

Before arriving here from Vietnam, he dispatched an envoy to East Timor, where Australian commandos landed Thursday to help quell an outbreak of fighting.

He arrived in Thailand less than a week after UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari made a rare visit to neighboring Myanmar, where he was allowed to meet with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

 

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