Correspondent's Notebook

Reflections of a correspondent

11 December 2009

The ABC’s South East Asia correspondent, Karen Percy reflects on her time reporting on the events which shaped the region and the world.

In almost three and a half years, I’ve retraced the steps of the Khmer Rouge, mourned alongside supporters of the late Philippines President Corazon Aquino and greeted the first monks to get across the border from Burma after the Saffron Revolution of 2007.

I’ve dined with Malaysia’s opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, as he made the wedding rounds during his comeback campaign in 2008.

I waited and I waited and waited for Hillary Clinton during the US Secretary of State’s first ASEAN meeting earlier this year.

I watched the Socceroos flame out during the 2007 Asia Cup and marvelled as a jubilant Iraqi team took out the honours.

I’ve been in the presence of the Thai king, who is revered and holds a place in every Thai’s heart.

I’ve attended a royal funeral, an event steeped in Thai tradition and culture as a nation farewelled the King’s late sister, Galyani Vadhana.

My posting has taken me to Pakistan, to the spot where just days before the country’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, where grief overwhelmed.

And to Padang Indonesia, where I walked through the rubble of the earthquake and saw the resilience of a people too used to their homes and their lives being shaken apart.

I made a brief official visit to Rangoon, before a nasty foot infection forced me home, and then found myself on a blacklist of journalists stuck reporting from afar, when a cyclone and protests exposed the failings of the military junta.

I spent a memorable day in the company of Imedla Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, who at 80 years of age, is unapologetic about the two-decades under her dictator husband, Ferdinand.

But so much of what has happened in South East Asia during my stint, has brought me in one way or another to Thailand’s government house in Bangkok

My first visit was late on the night of September 19 2006, when the gates were locked, soldiers were armed and tanks blocked the entrance.

I had been in Thailand just over six weeks and the military had staged a coup.

Thais heard about it on the radio or on the television. That night, the Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra was forced out while he was travelling abroad.

Unlike past military takeovers, this time there was no bloodshed. It would be nice to say it has stayed that way, but since then government house has been occupied twice.

Firstly in 2008 by the yellow-shirted protest group opposed to Mr Thaksin’s colleagues who took office in the 2007 elections. And then thus year by Mr Thaksin’s red-shirts who surrounded the building insisting that the court-installed government of Abhisit Vejjajiva get out.

The Red-shirts would later storm a meeting of regional leaders and then riot on the streets of Bangkok.

There have been fatalities on both sides and fears of yet more violence to come because the divisions are deep.

I was back at government house this week. But this time the military was there purely in a ceremonial capacity for the Thai King’s birthday.

It was a strange experience for me as I remembered the tense moments inside and outside these gates at the height of the protest as I took part in one fo high society’s big annual events.

In recent weeks as I sort and pack and ready myself to leave Thailand, I’ve been looking back at my time here.

On Christmas Day 2006, I met the coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin.

A year later I would interview another general, Surayud Chulanont, who was the reluctant post-coup Prime Minister.

I never met Thaksin Shinawatra, I caught a glimpse of him last year when he returned briefly to Thailand.

But of the three Prime Ministers I have met, Samak Sundaravej stands out.

The blunt speaking chef turned politician, who was the first elected post-coup leader, was kicked out because he continued to host a cooking show.

It was an absurdity at the time and looks even sillier now with the benefit of hindsight and the litany of sins of other politicians that have been revealed.

I was saddened when I hear that he had passed away this year after a battle with cancer.

But what I will really take away from my time in South East Asia is the ordinary people who have touched my life.

In the south of Thailand, there was the doctor who took his life into his hands every time he treated a patient, because he worked in a Thai government funded clinic, which was opposed by the insurgents there.

The wonderful Australia gentleman with a zeal for getting Cambodian kids to drink clean water.

The Burmese refugees who’ve been unable to leave camps on the Thai border after more than two decades.

The parents of a young woman in the Philippines who will never know what happened to their activist daughter.

I’ve traipsed through palaces and parliaments and paddy fields and while there have been stressed and strains and aches and pains, I have loved ever minute of it.

This is Karen Percy, signing off for the last time as South East Asia Correspondent.