Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha says outsiders are masterminding the Bang Kloi Karen villagers movement.
Gen Prayut made the remark on Wednesday after earlier insisting that villagers were not allowed to enter Jai Paen Din in Kaeng Krachan National Park in Phetchaburi province since the area was part of the national park.
The court had prohibited them from living there and the government had found new land where they could live, he said.
The Bang Kloi villagers on Tuesday returned to Government House after government officials prohibited them from entering Jai Paen Din, a forest deep in the national park.
However, they say Jai Paen Din had been their ancestral land long the before Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation designated the forest as a national park in 1981 and forced them to move out a few decades later.
The group had camped out near Government House since the weekend and left after being satisfied with their talks with the government.
Gen Prayut insisted the government has to take care of everyone in the country, Thai or not, but they could not live wherever they wanted. The land that the government had prepared for the Bang Kloi villagers was made suitable for cultivation, he said.
The PM said the "masterminds" behind the Bang Kloi movement had created the conflict between the government and villagers. However, the prime minister did not disclose their identities.
He earlier accepted the group's demands and ordered a committee be set up to tackle the shortage of farmland owned by them.