US government-funded network that aids sedition around the globe wrote a 2016 report detailing the exact strategy anti-government protesters in Thailand are now using - including deliberately targeting the Thai economy and destroying Thailand's tourist industry.
October 17, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci - ATN) - A 2016 report published by the US government funded "Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies" (CANVAS) explicitly spells out the exact strategy now employed by US-funded agitators attempting to oust the current Thai government.
The report titled, "Country Report: Thailand" (PDF), explicitly states on page 32 under a section titled, "Tactics Moving Forward," that (emphasis added):
When determining how to pressure the NCPO moving forward, the most important pillars of support to target are the more urban and wealthier Bangkok class. The most effective way to do this is through economic pressures to ensure that the authoritarian nature of the NCPO leads to actual costs for its supporters. By showing that Thailand is not this idyllic paradise that government officials portray it to be, protestors can affect the tourism industry. By bringing attention to the numerous human rights problems and abuses protestors can sway international support towards their cause and perhaps lead to sanctions against the NCPO. Once the pocketbooks of those supporting the NCPO are hit there are far more likely to join a movement against the regime. If these supporters can be peeled away, then practically the entire country will stand opposed to the NCPO, providing the opposition with enough power to change the situation.
And this is precisely what the US-funded opposition in Thailand is now doing by targeting Bangkok's central business district and mass transit lines across the city.
A concerted propaganda campaign aided by the Western media has attempted to execute CANVAS' prescribed strategy against the nation's tourism industry by fabricating and spreading stories of various scandals in Thailand including smears against the nation's coconut and fishing industries and propaganda campaigns against resorts and tourist pricing.
Despite this - the fact that China sends more tourists to Thailand than all Western nations combined and that Chinese citizens are indifferent to Western propaganda - this strategy has mostly failed.
Recent protests - however - seek to use force to close central areas of economic activity and essential public infrastructure to target the nation's economic stability.
The CANVAS report also suggests (emphasis added):
Currently groups like the New Democracy Movement really cannot do any more large-scale protests because of the threat of retaliation. However, continuing with the mostly small-scale actions still has a lot of benefit. It keeps reminding people that the regime is undemocratic and abusive. It also raises some level of international awareness that helps them promote their cause.
That protests in 2016 were small and have failed to grow despite years of Western aid and support - including direct funding and even interventions by Western embassies based in Bangkok illustrates just how unpopular and artificial Thailand's opposition really is.
CANVAS' strategy is thus based entirely on how a small, unpopular movement can create maximum pain for the majority of the Thai population - and with the help of the Western media and their accomplices in Thailand - then blame the resulting chaos and economic crisis on the government.
Understanding and dealing with the foreign-funded nature of Thailand's ongoing protests will be key to ending them - just as it was in the case of China ending likewise US-funded unrest in Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang - the latter of which included US-sponsored terrorism.
Who is CANVAS?
CANVAS grew out of the US-funded opposition movement in Serbia - Otpor - according to CANVAS' own official website.
Otpor - in turn - was a creation of the US government - funded by direct and covert aid of several millions of dollars in a Washington-backed effort to overthrow the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević in a bid to tighten a geopolitical noose around Russia.
The New York Times admits in its 2000 article, "Who Really Brought Down Milosevic?," that (emphasis added):
The United States Agency for International Development says that $25 million was appropriated just this year. Several hundred thousand dollars were given directly to Otpor for "demonstration-support material, like T-shirts and stickers," says Donald L. Pressley, the assistant administrator. Otpor leaders intimate they also received a lot of covert aid -- a subject on which there is no comment in Washington.
At the International Republican Institute, another nongovernmental Washington group financed partly by A.I.D., an official named Daniel Calingaert says he met Otpor leaders "7 to 10 times" in Hungary and Montenegro, beginning in October 1999. Some of the $1.8 million the institute spent in Serbia in the last year was "provided direct to Otpor," he says. By this fall, Otpor was no ramshackle students' group; it was a well-oiled movement backed by several million dollars from the United States.
Just as in 2000 when the US government funded every aspect of Serbia's opposition - every aspect of Thailand's current opposition is also funded by the US government.
Some of the funding is openly disclosed on the US National Endowment for Democracy's (NED) website and includes Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) of which core leader Anon Nampa is a member, iLaw which is petitioning the Thai government to rewrite the Thai constitution, Prachatai and Isaan Record who promote the protests through a daily campaign of disinformation, and even organizations like "Assembly of the Poor" who provide physical bodies to fill up rallies.
READ MORE: The Complete Guide: US Government Role in Thailand's "Student Protests"
That a US-funded opposition group engaged in sedition now instructing other movements on how to carry out US-backed sedition published a plan Thai protesters are following verbatim - and that the Thai protesters themselves are funded by Washington - again, fully illustrates just how artificial and illegitimate the protest in Thailand are.
Only through the Western media and their Thai partners can the illusion of legitimacy be maintained. With the addition of US-based social media networks censoring accounts attempting to expose this information - it is hoped the protests can run their course and destroy the country before the public becomes aware of not only the protest's sponsors - but also the fact that no US-backed protest around the globe this century has resulted in "democracy" or "progress" of any kind - including and perhaps especially Serbia.
