Abstract

CASTANO ZAPATA, Daniel  and  RUIZ ROMERO, Gabriel. The Construction of a Counterinsurgency Speech as a Legitimizing Discourse of the Paramilitary Power in Colombia. Estud. Polit. [online]. 2017, n.51, pp.153-174. ISSN 0121-5167.  https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.espo.n51a08.

The paper analyses the legitimation process of ultra-right-wing paramilitary violence in Colombia. It focuses on the way in which the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia intended to introduce themselves as the Colombian civil society representatives. The paper then points out that such a legitimization is rooted in the construction of security/order duality as the central axis around which two groups are identified. On one hand, a particular group is framed as the only Colombian society enemy, while on the other hand there is another group that appears as the liberator who face the former. This socio-political dynamic is analysed within two different discursive registers. The first one is based on an analytical reading of the justifications made by the paramilitary leaders themselves and their political and economic sponsors. The second register is based on the analysis of local manifestations of the counter-insurgency discourse in the city of Medellín, Colombia. It is stated that the identification of an ‘other’ as the social enemy has defined antidemocratic ways of exercising power and violence, as well as antidemocratic ways of building society and State.

Keywords : Armed Conflict; Paramilitaries; Counterinsurgency Speech; Social Legitimacy; Colombia.

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