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“This is already a war, but so far it is an unarmed war,” said Ko Tee. “If there is a coup, or the election doesn’t happen, then it definitely becomes an armed war.” 

If anyone doubted the abyss into which Thailand could be heading, Ko Tee – who has been accused of orchestrating grenade attacks on anti-government marches in the thai capital – is the living proof.

“I want there to be lots of violence to put an end to all this,” he said. “I’m bored by speeches. It’s time to clean the country, to get rid of the elite, all of them.”

Image: Thaksin Shinawatra’s “red shirts” want to “purge the elite” – however, constituting less than 7% of the population, and backed by Wall Street, this conspiracy to commit mass murder looks more like yet another Libya or Syria-style proxy war being waged by Wall Street and London against yet another sovereign nation.

And while the Telegraph shamelessly defends the deadly violence already carried out across the country by “Ko Tee” and other “red shirts” and his dreams of purging the elite, it utterly fails to mention that he and his “red shirts” constitute less than 7% of the Thai population and that the regime he plans to defend with violence is both illegitimate, and in the previous election that propelled it into power, not even backed by a majority of the eligible electorate.

The Telegraph almost celebrates the prospective bloodshed, and reiterates the overt lies peddled by the regime and its Western backers regarding the current political crisis in Thailand despite a large body of evidence suggesting otherwise. The Telegraph claims:

Those divisions pit the rural poor of the north and northeast of the country, who overwhelmingly support Pheu Thai, against the metropolitan middle class, the traditional ruling class and the Democrat Party’s supporters in their stronghold of southern Thailand.

The red shirts regard Ms Yingluck as the head of a democratically-elected government whose populist policies have done more to benefit them than any previous administration.

However, even in the “rural poor of the north and northeast,” the regime of Thaksin Shinawatra and his nepotist proxy, sister Yingluck Shinawatra, protests have been growing, including thousands of impoverished rice farmers who were cheated by his 2011 vote-buying “populist” rice scam that has collapses in scandal, corruption, and bankruptcy. And while the Telegraph and “Ko Tee” claim their planned campaign of terror and mass murder is aimed at the “elite,”threats against these rice farmers and their families have already been made.

The red-shirts threatened to hurt his family if he continued to lead the rally seeking money for unpaid farmers including for himself, he said.

The Telegraph continues with its torrent of lies aimed at justifying the violence being carried out currently, and set to expand upon the regime’s inevitable collapse:

But for the anti-government protesters, Ms Yingluck is merely the puppet of her brother – the former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was overthrown by a military coup in 2006 and fled into exile two years later to avoid trial on corruption charges.

But it is not just “for anti-government protesters” that Yingluck is a mere puppet of her brother – it is an admitted fact stated multiple times by both Thaksin Shinawatra himself, and his proxy party.

Both Forbes and the New York Times published direct quotes from the ruling party’s leadership inside of Thailand, and from Thaksin Shianwatra himself, declaring that he was ruling the country remotely.

Image: The New York Times openly admits that Thailand is currently run by unelected convicted criminal/fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra. Clearly any proxy government or elections in which it participates in are illegitimate by both Thai and international standards. Thaksin’s foreign ties are what have afforded him impunity regarding an otherwise cartoonish, 3rd world dictatorship.

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There is no question that an accused mass murderer and convicted criminal hiding abroad from a 2 year jail sentence, multiple arrest warrants, and a long list of pending court cases, is illegally running Thailand by proxy. Being unelected, Thaksin Shinawatra is by all accounts a dictator, and his “government” a regime, however cleverly they try to dress it up.

Those protesting this illegal, clearly criminal regime openly conspiring to commit yet more atrocities in the name of clinging to power, are clearly justified, no matter how popular Thaksin may be. However, it turns out that Thaksin’s support constitutes not even half of the Thai population – as determined by both his proxy party’s performance in 2011’s general elections and surveys conducted by his Western supporters in 2010.

Thaksin Shinawatra’s “Red Shirts” Are Incontrovertibly a Minority 

It was in 2010 that the Asia Foundation conducted its “national public perception surveys of the Thai electorate,” (2010’s full .pdf here). In a summary report  titled, “Survey Findings Challenge Notion of a Divided Thailand.” It summarized the popular misconception of a “divided” Thailand by stating:

“Since Thailand’s color politics began pitting the People’s Alliance for Democracy’s (PAD) “Yellow-Shirt” movement against the National United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship’s (UDD) “Red-Shirt” movement, political watchers have insisted that the Thai people are bitterly divided in their loyalties to rival political factions.”

The survey, conducted over the course of late 2010 and involving 1,500 individuals, revealed however, a meager 7% of Thailand’s population identified themselves as being “red” Thaksin supporters, with another 7% identifying themselves only as “leaning toward red.”

For Thaksin Shinawatra and his proxy regime, it has only lost support since the 2010 survey was conducted. In the 2011 elections, despite being declared a “landslide victory,” according to Thailand’s Election Commission, Thaksin Shinawatra’s proxy political party received 15.7 million votes out of the estimated 32.5 million voter turnout (turnout of approx. 74%). This gave Thaksin’s proxy party a mere 48% of those who cast their votes on July 3rd (not even half), and out of all eligible voters, only a 35% mandate to actually “lead” the country. 

Image: (left) 2011’s election results showing most, but not all northern provinces under Thaksin Shinawatra’s proxy regime in red. (right) Provinces where rice farmers are now blocking roads in protest to Thaksin’s vote-buying rice scam that has collapsed in bankruptcy and scandal – dousing the absurd “secession” theory floated by the Economist and others.

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The regime’s true “support,” an ever-shrinking group of violent “reds” whose extremism is being distilled through desperation, is all that is left – casting doubt on theories floated by both the regime and its Western backers over the prospects of “civil war” and “secession.” What will transpire next will be an attempt to portray limited terrorism as “popular resistance” – a deceitful ploy the Telegraph gladly plays accomplice to – against whatever forces finally sweep Thaksin Shinawatra from power. For Thais, knowing this, and steeling against the counterstrike, will entirely disrupt it, leaving the regime’s leadership exposed to well-justified, complete and utter uprooting.

Only the West, dominated by Wall Street and London – the true “elites” – could fashion such a deceitful and insidious narrative of “class war” in Thailand to defend their loyal proxy Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thaksin Shinawatra Represents the 1%

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Despite clever marketing, the regime of Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, are far from champions of the rural poor. They have been backed by Wall Street and London for nearly a decade, and brother Thaksin even before first taking office in 2001.Thaksin had been prime minister from 2001-2006. Long before Thaksin Shinwatra would become prime minister in Thailand, he was already working his way up the Wall Street-London ladder of opportunity, while simultaneously working his way up in Thai politics. He was appointed by the Carlyle Group as an adviser while holding public office, and attempted to use his connections to boost his political image. Thanong Khanthong of Thailand’s English newspaper “the Nation,” wrote in 2001:

“In April 1998, while Thailand was still mired in a deep economic morass, Thaksin tried to use his American connections to boost his political image just as he was forming his Thai Rak Thai Party. He invited Bush senior to visit Bangkok and his home, saying his own mission was to act as a “national matchmaker” between the US equity fund and Thai businesses. In March, he also played host to James Baker III, the US secretary of state in the senior Bush administration, on his sojourn in Thailand.”

Upon becoming prime minister in 2001, Thaksin would begin paying back the support he received from his Western sponsors. 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.

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 last year’s 2011elections 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).

Image: The US-ASEAN Business Council, a who’s-who of corporate fascism in the US, had been approached by leaders of Thaksin Shinwatra’s “red shirt” street mobs. (click image to enlarge)

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The council in 2004 included 3M, war profiteering Bechtel, Boeing, Cargill, Citigroup, General Electric, IBM, the notorious Monsanto, and currently also includes banking houses Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Chevron, Exxon, BP, Glaxo Smith Kline, Merck, Northrop Grumman, Monsanto’s GMO doppelganger Syngenta, as well as Phillip Morris.

Photo: Deposed autocrat, Thaksin Shinawatra before the CFR on the even of the 2006 military coup that would oust him from power. Since 2006 he has had the full, unflinching support of Washington, Wall Street and their immense propaganda machine in his bid to seize back power.

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Thaksin would remain in office until September of 2006. On the eve of the military coup that ousted him from power, Thaksin was literally standing before the Fortune 500-funded Council on Foreign Relations giving a progress report in New York City.

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), Robert Blackwill of Barbour Griffith & Rogers (CFR), Kobre & Kim, and currently Robert Amsterdam of Amsterdam & Peroff (Chatham House).

Robert Amsterdam of Amsterdam & Peroff, would also simultaneously represent Thaksin’s “red shirt” UDD movement, and was present for the inaugural meeting of the so-called “academic” Nitirat group, attended mostly by pro-Thaksin red shirts (who literally wore their red shirts to the meeting). Additional support for Thaksin and his UDD street-front is provided by the US State Department via National Endowment for Democracy-funded “NGO” Prachatai.

It is clear that the West has invested astronomical amounts of time and resources into the Shinwatra regime, and its condemnation of anti-regime protesters constitutes the West attempting to protect their investments, not any ideal of “rule of law” or “democracy.”  To that end, we see the London Telegraph and others shamelessly promoting conspiracy to commit mass murder under the guise of “purging the elite” even when Thaksin and his “red shirts” have already turned on the very rural poor they claim to be defending.