Why are there massive protests in Colombia?
2:36
(CNN Spanish) -
At least 24 dead.
Hundreds of injured.
Reports of police abuse.
Eight consecutive days of protests have already left a profound mark on Colombia.
And while people mobilize in the streets and are victims of violence, former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez refers to these demonstrations as a "dissipated molecular revolution."
Uribe wrote on Monday that the "dissipated molecular revolution" must be resisted, since it "prevents normality, scale and glass."
1. Strengthen the armed forces, weakened by equating them with terrorists, Havana and JEP.
And with a narrative to annul their legitimate actions;
2. Recognize: Terrorism greater than imagined;
4. Accelerate the social;
5. Resist Dissipated Molecular Revolution: prevents normality, scale and cup
- Álvaro Uribe Vélez (@AlvaroUribeVel) May 3, 2021
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This was the term that the ex-president used to refer to the protests in Colombia, which do not stop and in which the use of violence is increasingly documented.
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What does this concept refer to and why would its use be a danger signal for Colombia?
We explain below.
What is the dissipated molecular revolution?
Richard Tamayo Nieto, Doctor of Law from the Universidad del Rosario and Master of Philosophy from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, commented to CNN that this term is not a philosophical concept nor does it have academic support, rather it is a doctrine that tries to explain the political role of current demonstrations, especially in Latin America.
“The main thesis of this doctrine is that the main objective of the popular demonstrations is to lead a State to what they call 'permanent civil war'.
Therefore, it must be handled by the States as a matter of national security and the protesters must be considered a military target, ”Tamayo Nieto added.
The analysis based on this doctrine, added the doctor in Law, is taken up to a greater extent to explain social demonstrations that at some point led to violent protests, for example, in Chile (student movement and mobilizations for the increase in transport), Colombia (current movements for tax reform), Ecuador (protests by indigenous groups) and Mexico (demonstrations for women's rights).
These countries, Tamayo indicated, have governments with right-wing or conservative ideas: “The Colombian government influenced the Ecuadorian electoral process through the Prosecutor's Office.
He was interested in having a political ally in power.
Definitely here it was celebrated as a triumph of the right.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador (from Mexico) is a reactionary leftist.
With conservative moral values.
(In all these cases), people have legitimate reasons to be on the street.
In Colombia a bomb of problems exploded, says analyst 0:58
Cupping and escalation
Edith Serrano said that the two phases mentioned above refer to the fact that, in the first instance, the protests begin in small groups (or molecules) that gradually grow and spread among the people.
“The takeover refers to the fact that the behavior of this vandalism within social demonstrations is something that is going to be generated according to the way the molecule acts;
that is to say, they are tiny actions that are generating interaction with each other (…) and at a certain moment they are going to escalate ”, Serrano explained.
The actions of the protests, according to the doctrine, put at risk the institutional and democratic order of the State, so its participants must be seen and attacked “through a national security strategy that involves the police force, the Army”, added the academic from UNAM.
Alexis López, the diffuser
Alexis López Tapia has been in charge of promoting the doctrine of the dissipated molecular revolution.
He is an entomologist - a person dedicated to the study of insects - of Chilean origin who has no philosophical or political training, said Tamayo Nieto.
López Tapia has not written articles or "papers" in any scientific journal to explain the term.
On the academia.edu portal, where he describes himself as a researcher and entomologist, he has some publications unrelated to the subject, among them: 'The secret of the foundation of Santiago', 'Sacred Geography', 'Emblems of Chile', 'Las boobs, sex and evolution '.
According to a report by Agencia Efe published in El País in 2000, López was one of the organizers of an ideological meeting of National Socialism in Chile that was suspended.
López Tapia now told CNN that he does not identify with that ideology.
"I am not nor do I declare myself a 'Nazi', 'neo-Nazi' or anything similar," and he added that he would not refer further on the subject.
Regarding the concept - which he does not refer to as a doctrine, but as a model - he commented the following: “About 20 years ago, I came, together with a Chilean professor, a political scientist (Heinecke Scott), studying the insurrectionary process that has taken place. developed in my country.
"And, based on this research that has theoretical and field work, we take the concept of the molecular revolution of Félix Guattari, to which is also added the concept of dissipation based on specifically the level of disaggregation and dissipation that occurs. behind the violent acts that hang from the peaceful demonstrations, "he said in the interview.
He added that the term is specifically outlined in a book called The Strategic Intellection Method, by Heinecke Scott.
However, López Tapia acknowledged that this work is difficult to access.
Regarding Guattari, the academic from the FES Aragón of the UNAM commented that the term molecular revolution is different from that of dissipated molecular revolution because the former focuses solely on the fact that “there is a process of social change and revolution that starts from forms of production wish".
Tamayo Nieto added that López Tapia stayed out of the public eye until less than two years ago, when social protests began in Chile.
On this, the Chilean entomologist commented that it was about a year ago when he began to spread the idea of the dissipated molecular revolution, both in person in various countries (Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, Paraguay, Mexico) and in internet conferences.
A doctrine that reaches the police forces
Alexis López gave several lectures at the Nueva Granada Military University (UMNG), located in Bogotá, Colombia, as documented by Tamayo and Serrano.
“He has been invited on a couple of occasions by the Nueva Granada Military University, which is the institution in charge of training the military.
We are witnesses that it has been part of the ideas that have been ending in the military sphere ”, commented the professor from UNAM.
López Tapia participated on July 23, 2020 in the forum 'Global Governance or Globalist Government?'
organized by the UMNG.
His speech was entitled 'Violence in social protest: law and order between the sword and legitimacy'.
Journalist Alexis Osvaldo López Tapia @Alexis_Lopez_T begins intervention on "Violence in social protest: law and order between the sword and legitimacy" #ForoInternacionalNeogranadino # UMNG38Años #AniversarioUMNG The university we all want!
pic.twitter.com/GjsFKTrkFf
- UMNG (@lamilitar) July 23, 2020
Already this year, he returned to the UMNG, now through a conference given by himself.
On this occasion, the presentation was entitled 'The dissipated molecular revolution and how to face it'.
López Tapia pointed out that he was indeed invited by the UMNG after they saw his lectures, in order to be able to contrast ideas about the phenomenon of social demonstrations.
"When the State is faced with a phenomenon for which it has no explanation, or at least the tools of the State itself do not give a full explanation, it is logical that they want to hear other interpretations of the phenomenon to be able to contrast," he said.
The UMNG deleted the posts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube about the last conference.
However, a cached review of one of the publications on Facebook allowed us to verify the date and place where the presentation was made: on Friday, February 19, at the Campus Nueva Granada headquarters.
CNN contacted the Nueva Granada Military University for comment, but so far no response has been received.
For his part, the Doctor of Law from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana pointed out that, until Tuesday, some of the lectures he gave were still on YouTube, but now they are private.
What is Uribe looking for by using that rhetoric?
Álvaro Uribe asks to protect the human rights of the police officers 2:47
Colombian analyst Ariel Ávila, professor at the Externado University and deputy director of the Center for Thought on the Armed Conflict, Peace and Post-Conflict, explained that with this language former President Uribe seeks to “legitimate defense of the military.
It is basically an exercise to be able to shake their bases ”.
At the juncture of the protests of the last week in Colombia, this theory of Álvaro Uribe "does not account for the complexity that is being experienced in the streets," Ávila told CNN.
Ávila explains that the government of President Iván Duque - a member of the Democratic Center party, whose leader is former President Uribe - calls for the use of force to control social mobilization.
"The Duque administration is in a very difficult economic situation, an ungovernable political situation, the government exploded in their hands, their governing coalition, and they, when they saw that the strike was very large, chose to repress and make the Repression will lead people to hide again and appease, that is, deactivate the strike through repression, "said Ávila.
"What Álvaro Uribe was looking for was to gain support in the Military Forces to justify the repression," interprets Ávila, referring to the former president's defense of the actions of the forces of order, a sector that he and his party claim to represent through of the democratic security policy.
Uribe, meanwhile, says that his proposal is not repression, but "military and police prevention against vandalism."
The Government has insistently defended the actions of the security forces in the face of criticism and denunciations of repression. President Duque has indicated that the public force "guarantees the right to demonstrations, but also ensures the preservation of public order" and in his speech on Monday said that in any case, he will not accept that officials act outside of the law. »If an action is presented outside the framework of the Constitution that affects people's rights as I have always done. I will not accept it in any way.
Defense Minister Diego Molano said on Tuesday that 29 disciplinary investigations, 7 criminal investigations with the Prosecutor's Office and 5 investigations by the military criminal justice, have been opened for complaints related to the possible abuse of authority by the public force. «Our public force acts in accordance with the law and human rights. Where there are reports of abuse, the respective investigations are carried out, "said Molano.
What critics call repression, the Executive explains as a legal response to a "vandalism threat" consisting of "a criminal organization that hides behind legitimate social aspirations."
In this sense, on Saturday Duque ordered the militarization of cities "where there is a high risk to the integrity of citizens," that is, where the riots are most violent.
5 phrases from the interview of the former president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe in CNN's Conclusions
The danger of this doctrine
Seeing the protesters as the internal enemy of the State without addressing the social causes of the protest is the greatest danger of the dissipated molecular revolution, said Edith Serrano.
And it is something that is already being reflected by the excess of violence of the police forces against those who mobilize in the streets, according to the academic.
“It is dangerous because you are legitimizing the use of totally violent and brutal force.
If we look at the days in which the National Strike has been carried out in Colombia, we realize that there is no deterrent mechanism in which dialogue is generated (…).
But in reality what we are seeing is a point-blank shot, "he said.
Regarding this, López Tapia said that there has never been an attempt to criminalize “the legitimate and just social demand.
Peaceful social protest, without damage, without violence, without acts of vandalism is absolutely legitimate and must be protected ”.
However, Tamayo Nieto assured that another of the dangers of this doctrine is to think that the demonstrations are something planned to destabilize the State, where even, according to the doctrine, even children can be co-opted by the protests.
“It is a fact that the Armed Forces in Colombia are indoctrinating themselves in this dissipated molecular revolution.
It is very worrying that basic limits in law are being lost, such as the fact that children are attacked militarily ”, he added.
With information from Stefano Pozzebon, Carolina Melo and Sebastián Jiménez, from CNN.
Álvaro Uribe Álvaro Uribe VélezColombiaProtestsRevolution