Vol. 50 No. 3 September 2019 ‘Accountability Amidst Fragility, Conflict, and Violence: Learning from Recent Cases’ in Karenni State was meant to support returning IDPs after the rebel Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) signed a ceasefire with Thein Sein’s administration in 2012. Karenni State has witnessed armed conflict since the late 1950s. A large-scale Tatmadaw offensive in the late 1990s led to mass displacement of civilians, many of which fled to the refugee camps on the Thai border or remained internally displaced. The MPSI project intended to resettle these displaced communities back to Karenni State in the wake of the ceasefire. Between September 2013 and June 2014, the MPSI project built ten so-called ‘model villages’ in the area of Shadaw Township to support 251 returning IDP households (The Myanmar Peace Support Initiative 2014: viii). According to the MPSI, this project was a success (ibid.: viii). In contrast, the Karenni Civil Society Network (KCSN) – an umbrella group of Karenni CSOs – voiced strong concerns about the MPSI project (KCSN 2012). The CSOs argued that the Tatmadaw used the project for its counterinsurgency in ways that resemble the infamous ‘strategic hamlet’ programmes, in which the United States military tried to separate the Vietcong from its local support base by forcibly relocating local communities into highly securitised villages during the Vietnam War. According to the KCSN, Tatmadaw soldiers confiscated 3,000 acres of land from local villagers near the project site for the construction of training facilities. The military also maintained a heavy presence in the various model villages of Shadaw Township together with pro‑government militias and military intelligence units. Along the road to Loikaw, posters propagandised the army with slogans such as ‘March bravely, and attack bravely!’ or ‘Crush the enemy!’ (KCSN 2012). In an attempt to defend the project, the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs stated that military installations in the village appeared unmanned when its diplomatic envoy visited the site. Moreover, it claimed that the CSOs confused the actual localities because its report cited different village names (Martov 2015). Its commentary illustrates the most dangerous shortcoming of international donor projects in Myanmar’s conflict zones: limited knowledge of the lived experiences of local communities and the politics of conflict. It is of little surprise that the Tatmadaw welcomes Finnish diplomats differently than local villagers. The villages in the KCSN report are, moreover, the same as in the MPSI project. As common practice in Myanmar’s border areas, the denominations differ as the KCSN report uses local Karenni language names when referring to the villages. While not all international aid in Myanmar’s borderlands feed counterinsurgency strategies, the MPSI case highlights significant pitfalls for international engagement in an authoritarian and securitised environment. Most crucially, channelling aid through government structures, in an environment where government and counterinsurgency are intrinsically linked and little knowledge exists on the side of the donors, is likely to exacerbate rather than alleviate problems for local communities and civil society. 30 | Brenner and Schulman Myanmar’s Top-Down Transition: Challenges for Civil Society