All these attempts at dialogue have been afflicted by the same problems. The first is : who speaks for the thais? the thai state is far from a unitary actor : the southern conflict is under the jurisdiction of several competing groups and agencies. While in theory prime ministers and their cabinet subordinates are in charge of the issue, in practice much of the strategic thinking has been done by the national security council. something of a paper tiger. At the same time, despite the key role supposedly granted to the civilian southen border provinces administative centre, the royal thai army has often behaved like a colonial overlord in the deep south, and monopolizes much of the special budgetary allocations for the region via ( internal security operation command) a cold war-era umbrella agency which was given enhanced standing and resources after the 2006 coup. There is intense distrust between eleted politicians and these competing bureaucratic entities ; any dialogue process ' owned' by one partner is likely to
Be guietly disowned by the others.