by Giuseppe Gagliano –
Despite some changes in the Thai government that took place on 13 July, the director of the main intelligence agency, i.e. the National Intelligence Agency or NIA, Thanakorn Buares, has remained in his post both for the skills he has demonstrated in these long years of work and for the support obtained by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.
From the organizational point of view, the intelligence agency deals with both internal security and foreign espionage and structurally depends on the national security council. From a historical point of view, the Thai intelligence agency was founded in 1954 with the aim of countering communism in the Southeast Asian theater.
The current director looks back on a long career in counter-terrorism, but despite his long experience the terrorist attack perpetrated in Thailand on August 17, 2015 caught him off guard, for which he was subjected to harsh criticism. Among his experiences is the direction of the office n.9, which has the purpose of combating transnational crime.
Another field he has dealt with is monitoring the separatist movement in the south of the country. The fact remains that the intelligence agency he directs constitutes the center of gravity around which all the main activities of the Thai security services revolve. In fact, the current military junta, which came to power after a coup d’état in 2014, entrusts its security precisely to the Nia. In addition, the current director has supported some changes to the intelligence rules dating back to 1985, which allow intelligence services to collect information inside the country by all possible means. This concretely means that the intelligence agency is delegated to surveil opponents and political movements that have ties to foreign intelligence.
Among the main missions of the agency there is obviously that of safeguarding the safety of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, whose support within the country is very weak.
A particular aspect of the modus operandi of the current director is to travel with the king to Germany, where the sovereign has a luxurious residence. The constant presence of the current director of the intelligence agency in Germany as early as 2020 has led the Bundestag to express legitimate concern about the real activities that the Thai intelligence agency carries out on German territory.
At a strategic level, the policy followed by the intelligence agency is to have close ties with the United States, and in particular with the CIA and with the military intelligence of the Pentagon, but also with China.
As for the American agencies, they have various infrastructures in Thailand, including those relating to the interception of electronic signals. In 2021 the deputy director of the CIA, Davide Cohen, was received with all the honors of the current director of the Nia.
However, the most interesting aspect of the collaboration with the United States is the presence of black sites or secret prisons in Thailand since 2001 to incarcerate and torture members of Islamic terrorist movements such as al-Qaeda. In fact, in 2018 the former CIA director Gina Haspel had closely collaborated with Thailand in this very area.
Even if relations with Beijing are good, above all thanks to the close ties that have been created over the years by the former NIA director Nantuwat Samart, the fact remains that when in September 2022 the director of national security of Taiwan, Chen Ming-tong, Beijing has implemented a real cyber attack with the aim of launching a precise warning to Thailand, demonstrating the fragility of the country’s cyber security infrastructure.
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