Seguridad Y Ciudadania En Los 90S En Medellin: El Surgimiento De Las Empresas Colombianas De Proteccion Violenta‪.‬

Resumen. El proposito de este articulo es perfilar una aproximacion critica general a la naturaleza de la seguridad publica en areas donde, ambientados por un prolongado conflicto politico armado operan traficantes de droga. Parte de un caso empirico de estudio--las ciclicas oleadas de cruenta violencia que se presentan en la ciudad de Medellin desde los annos 1980, para ilustrar la dimension socio organizacional del modelo mafioso urbano de proteccion y examinar la particularidad de la mercantilizacion de la seguridad publica que se comenzo a producir. En el analisis de los dos asuntos interrelacionados, la proteccion forzada y la naturaleza empresarial de los agentes que realizan esta proteccion, este articulo situa dentro de una perspectiva teorica la naturaleza particular de "laboratorio" de esta ciudad, conocida en el mundo como cuna de carteles de la droga, y cuestiona la reduccion a escuadrones de la muerte exclusivamente o a simples extorsionistas, de los Empresarios de coercion (Blok 1975) y sus organizaciones caracterizadas en Sicilia y Rusia como "Violence-Controlling Enterprises" (Lane 1963), o "violence-managing agencies" (Volkov 2002) y localmente denominadas "Oficinas". Mientras revela el rol de "protection racket" (Stanley 1996) que el Estado cumple cuando, como en el caso colombiano, instrumentaliza las Oficinas de Proteccion Violenta como redes de una guerra irregular contra los movimientos de oposicion social y politica, abre una perspectiva de investigacion sobre las aporias que la coercion criminal masiva genera al ejercicio ciudadano. Abstract. The purpose of this article is to outline a general critical understanding of the nature of public security in areas where drug traffickers operate. Toward this end, two interrelated issues are examined: forced protection, and the entrepreneurial nature of the agents providing that protection. This article will use an empirical case study--the dramatic and cyclical prevalence of brutal violence in the city of Medellin since the 1980s--to illustrate both the socio-cultural and urban dimensions of the establishment of the Mafia mode of protection and to examine commodified public security in cities affected by the spread of protracted political armed conflict, such as the case of Colombia. This will allow us to situate within a theoretical perspective the particular "laboratory" nature of this city, known around the world as the home of drug cartels, in terms of the creation of armed groups that compel businesses and residents to buy protection services. In so doing, this article takes a comprehensive view of public safety, and specifically of the protection from the risk of criminal coercion that negates the guarantee of autonomy of the protected subject. This article thus questions the reduction of coercive entrepreneurs (Blok 1975) and their organizational forms known as a "Violence-Controlling Enterprises" (Lane 1963), "violencemanaging agencies", or (Volkov 2002), and locally referred to as "Offices" to mere extortionists, and reveals the "protection racket" role that the State plays (Stanley 1996) when it instrumentalizes these Offices of Violent Protection as networks in a war against social and political opposition movements.