and actively took part in George W. Bush’s war on terrorism. Thaksin believed that the drug traders financially supported separatism in Thailand’s three Muslim-majority southern provinces. Therefore, the TRT government tended to use a hardline military approach to deal with the drug traffickers and the southern separatists (Storey, 2007). These controversial anti-drug and anti-terrorist strategies were closely watched by the international community, particularly the United Nations (AsianTribune, 2003). Hence, the Thaksin government received a warm welcome from the Thai rural masses. In the meantime, Thaksin was also strongly criticized by scholars for the parliamentary dictatorship, for silencing the media and for public harassment of intellectuals as well as human rights abuses (Pasuk & Baker, 2009).