The People’s Network Against the World Bank and IMF ended its protest on Friday afternoon (16 October) with a call for a new Constitution.
The Network is made of civil society organizations and activist groups, many of whom are members of communities at risk of losing land and livelihood due to major development projects, as well as those who are living with environmental damage caused by these projects.
The protesters marched from Sunlakakorn Intersection in Khlong Toei to Rama 4 Intersection. They originally intended to march to the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre, where the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group is taking place. They were met with a police blockade and decided to occupy two lanes of Ratchadapisek Road in front of the Khlong Teoi Market. They stayed overnight. Representatives of the communities that joined the Network took turn giving speeches about the impact of development projects on their communities and the environment. They also held panel discussions about community rights issues, as well as staged plays and concerts.
On Friday (16 October), protesters placed sandalwood flowers — artificial flowers used during Thai Buddhist funerals — onto pictures of Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, Chinese President Xi Jinping, World Bank Group president Ajay Banga, and Thai politician Newin Chidchob as a symbolic act of protest against policies that profit corporations but destroy the environment.
Before the end of the protest, Network representative Wisarut Srichan read a statement saying that unfair policies, laws, and development projects, whether they originate from the Thai government or from the World Bank and the IMF, turn public goods and social welfare into commodities to be profited from. Even if Thailand no longer owes substantial debts to the two organizations the way it was during the 1997 economic crisis, the ideological influence of these two organizations have led to environmental damage.
The ultimate goal of the movement is therefore a new Constitution, since Thailand would never escape the middle-income trap without first dismantling the structure of corruption and feudalism entrenched in the Thai society.
The full statement reads:
Building Our Country with the Hands and Feet of the People
It does not matter whether unjust policies, development projects and laws originate from our own government, independently of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), or whether they originate from the World Bank and IMF, independently of our government. What matters is that they all arise from the same ideology, reinforcing and supporting one another. They seek, by every possible means, to turn public goods and social welfare provisions which the state has a duty to safeguard and provide in order to ensure people’s well-being and improve their quality of life into commodities for capitalists to profit from.
Nor does it matter that Thailand no longer owes substantial debts to these two financial institutions, or that any remaining loans are relatively small compared with those during the 1997 economic crisis. Nor should we be expected to act as gracious hosts simply to preserve the country’s image. The ideological influence of these two institutions is more coercive than having a gun pointed at one’s head and more powerful than bullets. The adoption and deep penetration of the ideas promoted by these two institutions of global governance have led the Thai state and its bureaucracy to keep our society trapped in a condition of colonial subjugation, enslaved by a system from which it cannot break free.
The air we breathe, the rivers from which we drink and sustain our livelihoods, the land on which we settle and cultivate our crops, and the forests where we gather mushrooms, bamboo shoots and medicinal plants, graze our cattle and buffaloes, forage and hunt none of these could have been destroyed at the hands of the government and its bureaucracy without the loans and ideologies implanted by the World Bank and IMF. The Thai state and bureaucracy lack the intellectual independence to free themselves from imperialist domination.
It is therefore inconceivable that, following the meetings of countries subjected to the colonial domination of the World Bank and IMF, Thailand could escape the middle-income trap and become a high-income country without first dismantling the structures of corruption and entrenched feudal power within Thai society.
The struggle against the World Bank and IMF is thus both a means and an end in itself a struggle along the path towards a greater goal: drafting a new constitution that will finally place sovereign power genuinely in the hands of the people. Standing in the way is the government of the Blue Regime, which controls the House of Representatives, the Senate and independent constitutional bodies, alongside institutions that stand above the Constitution and obstruct democratic transformation.
This is the Khlong Toei Declaration.
We pledge to one another that we will bring together the many people’s movements, weaving our struggles into a united force and undertaking the collective tasks of our shared future to transform our country and society for the better, with the hands and feet of the people themselves.
With respect,
People’s Network Against the World Bank and IMF
Khlong Toei Market, Bangkok
16 October 2026.