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Thailand’s Queen Mother Sirikit, who oversaw royal projects to help the rural poor, preserve traditional craft-making and protect the environment, died on Friday. She was 93 years old.
The Royal Household Bureau said he died in a hospital bangkokSince October 17, she was suffering from a blood infection but despite the efforts of the medical team, her condition did not improve. She has been largely absent from public life in recent years due to declining health. Her husband, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, died in October 2016.
Photos released by the palace for his 88th birthday show his son the King Maha Vajiralongkornand other royals visited the Queen Mother at Chulalongkorn Hospital, where she was receiving long-term care.
Although living in the shadow of her late husband and son, Sirikit was beloved and influential in her own right. His portrait was displayed in homes, offices and public places Thailand And her birthday of 12 August was celebrated as Mother’s Day. Their activities ranged from helping Cambodian refugees to saving the country’s once lush forests from destruction.
Yet as the monarchy’s role in society became increasingly scrutinized during Thailand’s last decades of political turmoil, so too did the queen’s role in it. Stories of his behind-the-scenes influence circulated during the turmoil that followed two military takeovers and several rounds of bloody street protests. And when she publicly attended the funeral of a protester killed during a clash with police, for many it marked her taking a stand in a political dispute.
Sirikit Kitiyakara was born into a wealthy, aristocratic family in Bangkok on August 12, 1932, the year the absolute monarchy was replaced by a constitutional system. Both his parents were related to the first kings of the present Chakri dynasty.
She attended wartime schools in Bangkok, the target of Allied air raids, and moved there with her diplomat father after World War II. France Where he served as ambassador.
At the age of 16, he met the newly appointed King of Thailand ParisWhere she was studying music and languages. Their friendship blossomed after Bhumibol had a near-fatal car accident and she moved to Switzerland, where he was studying, to help care for him. King charmed her with the poem and composed a waltz titled “I Dream of You”.
The couple married in 1950, and at a coronation ceremony later that year both vowed “to rule with righteousness for the benefit and happiness of the Siamese (Thai) people.”
The couple had four children: the current King Maha Vajiralongkorn, and princesses Ubolratana, Sirindhorn and Chulabhorn.
During their early married life, the Thai royal family traveled around the world as goodwill ambassadors and formed personal relationships with world leaders.
But by the early 1970s, the king and queen were devoting most of their energies to Thailand’s domestic problems, including rural poverty, opium addiction among hill tribes, and communist insurgency.
Each year, the couple traveled the countryside attending more than 500 royal, religious and state ceremonies.
Rani, who was a great dresser and avid shopper, also loved climbing hills and entering dirty villages, where older women called her “daughter”.
Thousands of people brought their problems to her, ranging from marital disputes to serious illnesses, and the queen and her assistants took up many of the problems personally.
While some in Bangkok gossiped about her involvement in palace intrigues and her lavish lifestyle, her popularity in the countryside endured.
In an interview with The Associated Press in 1979, he said, “Misunderstandings arise between the people in the countryside and the rich, so-called civilized people of Bangkok. The people of rural Thailand say they are neglected, and we try to bridge that gap by living with them in remote areas.”
Royal development projects were established throughout Thailand, some of them initiated and supervised directly by the Queen.
To increase the income of poor rural families and preserve endangered crafts, Rani started a foundation called Support in 1976, which has trained thousands of villagers in silk-weaving, jewellery-making, painting, ceramics and other traditional crafts.
Sometimes called the “Green Queen”, she also established wildlife breeding centers, “open zoos”, and hatcheries to save endangered sea turtles. His Forest Loves Water and Little House in the Forest projects attempted to demonstrate the economic benefits of preserving forest cover and water sources.
Whereas elsewhere the royal family had only ceremonial or symbolic roles, Queen Sirikit believed that the monarchy was an important institution in Thailand.
He said in a 1979 interview, “There are some people in the universities who think the monarchy is obsolete. But I think Thailand needs a sensible king.” “The king is coming, thousands of people will gather at this call.
“There’s something magic just in the word king. It’s wonderful.”