The policies elaborated by the Thai State to confront the unrest in the Southern provinces have been based on the perception and assessment of the situation by the central authorities. And, as is often the case, perceptions are creating their own "reality". It is only when we see these policies implemented on the ground that the misconceptions and weaknesses they contain become visible. It is the experiences drawn from these hard lessons that are supposed to be used in order to improve future policies. This study aims at reviewing the policy documents on the South of the successive governments, from 1978 to 2010, and to analyze the implementation of these policies.

The Authors

Arnaud Dubus has been working in Thailand since 1989 as a correspondent for Radio France Internationale, the French daily, Libération and the Swiss daily, Le Temps. Arnaud has been following the situation in Southern border provinces since 1993 and has written several Thai cultural books, among which are Armée du Peuple, Armée du Roi (with Nicolas Revise, Irasec/L'Harmattan, 2002) and Thaïlande. Histoire, société, culture (La Découverte, 2011).

Sor Rattanamanee Polkla is a lawyer working in the Human rights field since 2001. Rattanamanee has been especially involved with justice issues in the Southern border provinces and is the coordinator of Community Resource Centre (CRC), an NGO based in Thailand which is a local partner of the Asian Human Right Commission (AHRC) based in Hong Kong . She graduated from the Faculty of Law at Thammasat University , Bangkok.

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