Thailand: US-backed Opposition’s Violence Intimidates Critics, Paves Way for Regime Change

Some of these "student protesters" have even "graduated" into Thanathorn's Future Forward/Move Forward political party - including Rangsima Rome who used to regularly lead protests side-by-side with Anon Nampa. He still regularly attends protests and provides direct support for leaders including offering transportation - the Bangkok Post would admit.

Others supporting the unrest are students and academics indoctrinated through US State Department programs including the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) and scores of "workshops" run by USAID and other US entities across Thai schools and university campuses each year.

However - it too is funded by the US government via the NED. On the NED's official website an organization called "Thai Poor Act" has been listed for years, receiving millions of Thai Baht in funding. Its funding falls under a section titled, "Supporting Grassroots Engagement in Promoting Democracy," which is precisely what Assembly of the Poor claims to do. 

If Russia was funding an NGO in the US petitioning for the US Constitution to be rewritten - and rewritten specifically to make it easier for Russian-backed politicians to get elected into the US government - one could expect an immediate and extreme backlash across the media exposing this.

Yet in Thailand where US government-funded groups are doing precisely this in regards to the Thai constitution - the media not only conceals US funding, it spins the move as "pro-democratic."

On iLaw's own website under "About Us" it admits:

Democracy and self-determination means that Thailand's constitution and efforts to either maintain or amend it should be determined solely by the Thai people - not by Washington and fronts it funds like iLaw.

Other groups working to rewrite Thailand's constitution include "ConLab" or "Constitution Lab" (only on Facebook) who do so in partnership with US government-funded iLaw and which recently held an event at the US Embassy's "American Corner" at Chiang Mai University.

The rewritten constitution aims specifically to remove sections meant solely to prevent Thaksin Shinawatra and his proxies from returning to power. Thus iLaw's US-funded activities would make it easier for US-backed opposition parties to retake power and help the US reverse Thailand's growing ties with China.

US Government Funds Fake News Fronts Posing as "Independent Journalism" Supporting Protests 

There are also a number of fake news websites funded by the US government and providing decidedly lopsided coverage of the ongoing protests including Prachatai.

It is listed on the US NED's official website under the name "Foundation for Community Educational Media," which appears at the very bottom of Prachatai's website.

The media front's "executive director" Chiranuch Premchaiporn is also a "fellow" of the National Endowment for Democracy -  an organization chaired by representatives not of promoting democracy and human rights - but inveterate pro-war proponents and actual war criminals like Elliot Abrams, propagandists like Anne Applebaum, and representatives of America's arms, oil, and banking sectors.

Prachatai's activities include promoting and defending opposition groups and parties the US seeks to place into power. It has recently served as a central platform promoting ongoing unrest, protesters' demands, and attempting to build legitimacy around all three while omitting any mention of documented foreign funding or ulterior motives involved.

Prachatai has in the past and still currently hides its US government funding. A partial disclosure made in 2011 is buried on its English website and has not been updated since. No financial disclosure at all has been made on its Thai language website.

Prachatai also supplied at least one member of its staff - Nalutporn Krairisksh - as a "founding member" of billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit's Future Forward Party. Prachatai even "interviewed" her regarding her role as a Future Forward co-founder but never disclosed her relationship with Prachatai or the fact that she still worked out of their offices in Huay Kwang, Bangkok even after joining Future Forward.

The conflicts of interest are numerous and alarming - but also being entirely unmentioned or even covered up. It is impropriety that should help further illustrate the true nature of Thailand's so-called "opposition" and undermine dishonest or naive claims that US interference in Thailand is not a serious problem.

In fact - the easiest way to illustrate how what the National Endowment for Democracy does is wrong, is to note how if any other country did what it does, inside the US, it would be considered an act of war.

The US has leveled sanctions on both China and Russia over mere accusations of similar behavior it has yet to prove with evidence and has used claims of Chinese and Russian interference in Western affairs as impetus to place troops on Russia's boarders and sail warships off China's shores.

Yet it openly interferes abroad in ways many times worse in reality than it baselessly claims others are doing within its own borders.

The Human Rights Racket

Despite the current protests making "human rights" a central theme of their rallies - their sponsor Thaksin Shinawatra holds the odious title of worst human rights violator in Thai history.

The protesters themselves are at least partially made up of Thaksin Shinawatra's "red shirt" street front - guilty of some of the worst street violence in Thailand's modern history.

In 2003, while Thaksin Shinawatra was in office he initiated what he called a "war on drugs." Nearly 3,000 were extrajudicially murdered in the streets over the course of just 90 days. It would later turn out that more than half of those killed had nothing to even do with the drug trade.

In 2004, he oversaw the killing of 85 protesters in a single day during his mishandled, heavy-handed policy in the country's troubled deep south. The atrocity is now referred to as the "Tak Bai incident."

Throughout his administration he was notorious for intimidating the press, and crushing dissent. According to Amnesty International, 18 human rights defenders were either assassinated or disappeared during his first term in office. Among them was human rights activist and lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit. He was last seen in 2004 being arrested by police and never seen again. 

Also throughout Thaksin's administration, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) claimed in its report, "Attacks on the Press 2004: Thailand" that the regime was guilty of financial interference, legal intimidation, and coercion of the press.

The Western media still writes entire articles about Thaksin Shinawatra and his role in Thai politics - including this piece from last year in the Washington Post - never once mentioning the thousands put to death under his regime. 

According to, IndustriALL Global Union, Thanathorn's union-busting included in 2007: 

And in 2010 according to, Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights, Thanathorn's union-busting included:

Phil Robertson- Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division questioned Thanathorn in a tucked-away response to a social media post, asking: 

UPDATES: This article was updated on August 23, 2020 to include evidence that the so-called "Assembly of the Poor" is also indeed funded by the US NED. 

This article was updated on September 11, 2020 to include information about Student Union of Thailand (SUT) Parit "Penguin" Chiwarak's visits to the US Embassy. The US NED chart depicting Thai programs it funds has also been updated to include Assembly of the Poor.