"I'm looking for a group of people trying to go to Bangkok and protest, but I've only found people going to a seminar," said Lieutenant Thanom Harnsupho.
"The situation is normal. There is no movement here," he added.
The junta has also been quick to distance itself from rumors that the military would stop the loan scheme, but some say that maintaining Thaksin's rural policies will do little to help poor people in the long term.
"[Thaksin] just made people in Issan borrow more," Bamrung said. "He was popular because he kept campaigning about reducing poverty, but he can't have succeeded because people are still poor and have more debt."
And many in Issan think the first step to solving the problems is to get rid of a deep-seated prejudice that Thais in urban areas hold about the northeastern people.
"The people in other regions, they look down on Issan people," said Decha Premrudelert, who works as an advisor to a rural development NGO.
RSS