Thailand’s former foreign minister and ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan died yesterday afternoon of a heart attack.

His sudden death was greeted with shock by another former ASEAN secretary-general, Mr Ong Keng Yong, who had arranged to meet Dr Surin to talk about ASEAN developments in Singapore today.

Mr Ong, who is executive deputy chairman of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, described Dr Surin as a humanitarian at heart.

“He was always concerned about how people were treated, and how they could fend for themselves,” he told The Straits Times. Dr Surin, he said, was “familiar with Western political philosophy while a South-east Asian at heart”.

He was both persuasive as well as true to his convictions.

“He did not break the way ASEAN works although he could not agree with all the political decisions in ASEAN,” Mr Ong said.