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As we write this editorial, ANC-backed thugs have installed what can best be described as paramilitary law in townships whose population has dared to organise outside of local clientelist structures – with the support of much of the institutional left and international NGO community. In Thailand, "civil society" activists are in alliance with the military junta in opposition to the movements of the poor (Ungpakorn, this issue). In Ireland, a Green Party minister justifies the dismissal of cases taken against police officers involved in the brutal policing of marginal communities opposing a gas pipeline. In India, Communist parties send police, military and paramilitary groups against tribal groups opposing similar dispossession by multinationals.