As Thailand’s anti-government protests enter their fourth day, observers say prospects for violent confrontation are increasing, with reports of government supporters stockpiling weapons in case of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s ouster.
According to the Bangkok Post, radical members of the Red Shirts — diehard champions of Yingluck and her notorious brother Thaksin Shinawatra — are readying a cache of arms in case the 46-year-old premier is forced from office by either military or judicial intervention.
The paper quoted a Red Shirt source as saying “There are strong anti-coup and anti-court sentiments among the red-shirt mavericks who are familiar and experienced with weapon use.”
The very next day, the attacks began. The first was a grenade attack on peaceful marches lead by protest leader Suthep Thuangsuban, which killed one and injured 39. Suthep Thuangsuban was only 30 meters away from the blast, indicating it was a likely assassination attempt. Protesters would then storm the abandoned building where the attack originated to uncover what appeared to be a weapons catch and a safehouse, just as TIME described.
Last night, a gunman critically wounded a protest guard at a separate rallying site after shooting him through the back.
Image: Casualties are evacuated after a twin grenade attack today at Victory Monument, one of 7 main rally sites being used by “Occupy Bangkok” protesters. The regime had threatened a campaign of covert terrorism just last Thursday, before promptly kicking it off with daytime grenade attacks and nightly shootings. Meanwhile the US is taking a hard stand against protesters, and intentionally ignoring the deadly terrorism being used by a regime it has backed for nearly a decade.
Now today, a twin grenade attack struck yet another protest site, this one at Bangkok’s Victory Monument. The grenades were aimed at the stage and injured one of the protest leader’s nephews along with nearly 30 others. The grenade is allegedly the same make as the one used in the January 17 attack.
Regime Boldly Announces Beginning of Terror Campaign, Then Blames Protesters for Attacks
Despite overt threats by the regime just the day before the attacks began, the regime’s appointed deputy police chief, Adul Narongsak, claimed that the attack on January 17 was the work of protesters themselves, claiming they dropped the grenade at their own feet before trying to run away. Bangkok Post’s article, “Democrat ‘aide’ sought over blast,” claims:
Pol Maj Gen Adul Narongsak, deputy chief of Metropolitan Police Bureau, said the video clip showed a man wearing a white hat walking near a pickup and dropping an object, before rushing to take shelter behind a pole. Five seconds later, the explosion happened.
Unfortunately for Adul’s theory, even the very video he is drawing his conclusions from clearly shows the grenade falling from an elevated position (nearby abandoned buildings) at 0:12 seconds. Also, grenades have a maximum detonation time of 2-3 seconds, not 5 seconds. Additionally, grenades are meant to be thrown, not dropped and ran from. There is no possible way to reach safe cover meaning Adul is describing what would essentially be an attempted “false flag suicide bombing.” These were also the conclusions of Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) experts who arrived on the scene, directly contradicting the regime’s fabrications.
Readers should recall that Adul was also caught blatantly lying about deadly violence on December 26 where he claimed protesters dressed up as both a battalion of police who then destroyed scores of vehicles belonging to themselves as well as dressing up and positioning black-clad gunmen on roof tops of government buildings, before admitting finally it was the police all along. Thai PBS in their article, “National police chief admits men in black are police,” reported that:
National Police Office commissioner Pol Gen Adul Saengsingkaew this morning admitted that the men in black” on the roof-top of the Labor Ministry’s building near the Thai-Japan youth centre in Din Daeng are police.
The national police commissioner’s official admittance came as he led senior police officers to deliver best wishes and receive New Year blessings from the president of the Privy Council Gen Prem Tinsulanonda this morning.
Pol Gen Adul admitted that “men in black” are police and vowed to investigate and bring them to justice procedure.
He also admitted that the men in anti-riot uniforms who were seen smashing the windshields of a vehicle of a volunteer nurse are also the police.
US-Backs Terrorist Regime
The regime, unable to muster the police necessary to overwhelm the tens of thousands of protesters still out on the streets a week after “Occupy Bangkok” began, appears to believe a concerted terrorist campaign may help shrink numbers on the streets before its “red shirt” mobs and police units can move in. Their confidence that they can continue a blatant terrorist campaign against peaceful protesters stems from the stalwart support they have received from the US. Slanted reporting by the West has backed the regime for months, including biased reports from the BBC, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
The Washington Post has openly called on the US to condemn the protesters and back the regime in an op-ed titled, “Thailand’s anti-democracy protests should provoke a harsh rebuke from the U.S.” The op-ed was followed by a letter from US Congressman Michael Turner (R-OH) who implored US President Barack Obama to condemn the protests and back the regime and its planned sham elections scheduled for February 2, 2014.
To understand why the US is once again backing a terrorist regime in yet another country that it insists on meddling in, one must understand the decade of servile obedience Thaksin Shinawatra, the defacto regime leader, has lent the West:
In the late 1990’s, Thaksin was an adviser to notorious private equity firm, the Carlyle Group. He pledged to his foreign contacts that upon taking office, he would still serve as a “matchmaker” between the US equity fund and Thai businesses. In 2001 he privatized Thailand’s resources and infrastructure including the nation’s oil conglomerate PTT – much to Wall Street’s delight. In 2003, he would commit Thai troops to the US invasion of Iraq, despite widespread protests from both the Thai military and the public. Thaksin would also allow the CIA to use Thailand for its abhorrent rendition program. Also in 2004, Thaksin attempted to ramrod through a US-Thailand Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) without parliamentary approval, backed by the US-ASEAN Business Council who just before the 2011 elections that saw Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra brought into power, hosted the leaders of Thaksin’s “red shirt” “United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship” (UDD) in Washington DC. Since the 2006 coup that toppled his regime, Thaksin has been represented by US corporate-financier elites via their lobbying firms including, Kenneth Adelman of the Edelman PR firm (Freedom House, International Crisis Group,PNAC), James Baker of Baker Botts (CFR, Carlyle Group), and Robert Blackwill (CFR) of Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR), Kobre & Kim, Bell Pottinger (and here). Currently,Robert Amsterdam, of the Chatham House corporate member Amsterdam & Partners, serves as both lobbyist for Thaksin Shianwatra as well as his “red shirt” mobs, the UDD. During the most recent political crisis, the Western media has lent its full support to defending the Thaksin regime against protesters, as can be seen in reports by the BBC, Reuters, the New York Times, CNN, theWall Street Journal, and now the Washington Post.
