US Embassy Denies Funding Thai Protests Groups Listed on US NED's Own Website
September 11, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci – ATN) – The US Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand has been forced for a second time in a month to address growing evidence of its role behind current ongoing anti-government “student” protests.
This time, it is defending pictures turning up online of core protest leader Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak’s visits to the US Embassy in 2016 and 2018. An article by Thai-based English language newspaper The Nation in its article, “US Embassy dismisses claims it supports protesters,” would claim:
Allegations in the Thai media that the United States is supporting anti-government protesters were firmly rejected by the US Embassy in Bangkok on Thursday.
The allegations stem from photographs of student leader Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak meeting then-US ambassador Glyn Davies on a visit to the embassy in 2016.
The article also claimed (emphasis added):
In its statement, the US Embassy said:
“Ambassadors and Embassy personnel regularly meet with a broad cross section of Thai nationals, not just with students and youth, but also with government, military, business and other leaders. Such meetings do not imply endorsement of any views.”
It went on to reject accusations it was supporting the ongoing protests.
Yet this is a categorical lie and a lie as easy to expose as simply visiting the US government’s notorious regime change arm, the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED)‘s own official website for programs it funds in Thailand.
The US NED itself is funded annually through an appropriation from US Congress and subject to US Congressional and US State Department oversight – according to its own website. It disperses US government money to programs interfering in the internal political affairs of nations around the globe and is actively facilitated by US embassies worldwide.
READ MORE: The Complete Guide: US Government Role in Thailand’s “Student Protests”
In Thailand, the US NED is funding several core organizations leading current anti-government protests. The US Embassy – who has since 2014 organized NED events in the country aimed specifically at creating “youth” movements involved in Thailand’s internal political affairs – is denying US government funding openly listed on its own US NED website.
US Government Funds Virtually Every Aspect of Thailand’s Current Protests
Virtually every aspect of the current anti-government protests in Thailand are funded by the US government.
Core Leadership: Core leader Anon Nampa’s Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) has been funded since its creation in 2014 by the US government via the US NED.
The US NED’s webpage for programs and organizations it is funding in Thailand had openly listed TLHR as a recipient of US money in 2014 - archived here. It has since funded TLHR through the Union for Civil Liberty (UCL) whose website lists TLHR at the bottom as a member. The UCL is listed on the NED’s current Thailand page.
TLHR’s own staff would at one time admit that all of their funding comes from foreign governments. The Bangkok Post in a 2016 article titled, “The lawyer preparing to defend herself,” would admit (emphasis added):
…[TLHR] receives all its funding from international donors including the EU, Germany and US-based human rights organisations and embassies of the UK and Canada.
US government-funded TLHR – in addition to supplying Anon Nampa as a core protest leader – also provides free legal aid to other protest members and uses its platform to daily promote anti-government activities. Virtually every protester or anti-government voice online as well as the Western media follows, cites, and on social media shares TLHR’s daily statements and claims.
Thai Constitution Rewrite: One of the three demands made by “student protesters” has been the rewriting of the Thai constitution. To facilitate this, an organization funded by the US NED calling itself Internet Law Reform Dialogue (iLaw) has organized a nationwide petition drive to sponsor a motion to rewrite the Thai constitution.
iLaw lists its US government funding on its own website here, and it is listed on the US NED’s official website here under, “Internet Law Reform Dialogue.”
iLaw has organized booths at virtually every rally – big or small – around the entire country meaning that despite claims that the rallies are “self-organized,” “spontaneous,” and “organic” – US government-funded iLaw seems to know where and when each one will be and with enough time to organize a booth with professionally printed banners, signage, and staff to collect signatures for a constitution rewrite.
Imagine a Russian government-funded organization organizing a petition inside the US to rewrite America’s constitution and the US Embassy’s reaction to that. It would be easily conceived as nothing short of an act of war and is the best “test” to illustrate just how transparently dishonest the US Embassy in Bangkok’s denials of meddling in Thailand’s internal affairs really are.
Pro-Opposition Media: The US government via the NED also funds some of the largest opposition media platforms including Prachatai whose daily updates and claims about the protests are shared widely by those participating in and supporting the protests.
I have written to several donors who fund activities of Book Re:public (USAID and OSF) to see if they can do anything to help out in this situation. Although it might not have much impact since the military seems to don’t care to listen to anyone, we still hope that international pressure would at least help make it difficult for the military junta to continue their aggressive treatment towards people.
She has also published op-eds in Matichon newspaper, 101.com, Opendemocracy.org, and The Conversation Global. Currently, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is supporting her research exploring issues such as new civic activism and civic networks against democracy in Thailand.
U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo called on Southeast Asian countries to review ties with Chinese state-owned enterprises, stepping up pressure on Beijing over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
“Don’t just speak up, but act,” Pompeo said during a virtual summit with foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Thursday. “Reconsider business dealings with the very state-owned companies that bully Asean coastal states in the South China Sea. Don’t let the Chinese Communist Party walk over us and our people.”
The US Embassy in Bangkok can lie about facts documented on the very websites of US government-funded organizations behind core Thai protest groups – just like it lied about “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, “human rights abuses” in places like Libya and Syria where the US sought to militarily intervene, and lies daily about nations like Russia and China.
But people can choose to think for themselves, go to the US NED’s own website, look at documented evidence of the US government funding core protest groups – and ask them why the US Embassy is lying about it – and what Thailand as a nation should do about this foreign interference and the Thais and foreign expats willingly serving as accomplices toward it.
Source: https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2020/09/us-embassy-denies-funding-thai-protests.html
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