Colombia and Uribe's "Seguridad Democratica" plan - Security or makeup?

Democratic security or Democratic Security policy is the revolutionary Colombian security policy implemented during the administration of President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010).

It was unveiled in June 2003 and aims to achieve the following main objectives:

• Consolidate State control throughout Colombia to deny sanctuary to terrorists and perpetrators of violence.
• Protect the population through the increase of State presence and a reduction in violence.
• Destroy the illegal drug trade in Colombia to eliminate the revenues which finance terrorism and generate corruption and crime
• Transparently and efficiently manage resources as a means to reform and improve the performance of government.

The democratic security policy has become controversial inside and outside Colombia since the beginning of its application.

In spite of some good results, in fact, most of the critics and detractors of this policy, including human rights NGOs (such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International) and political opposition groups (such as the Colombian Liberal Party and the Independent Democratic Pole), share the assessment that it focuses too much on the military aspects of the Colombian Armed Conflict, relegating complex social, human rights and economic concerns to a secondary role, superseded by the perceived need for increased security.

Other criticisms imply leading to overexposure of civil population in the conflict, tolerance and impunity for National Army's crimes, and extreme polarization of the conflict with subsequent long-term obstacles in reaching a peace agreement with AUC paramilitary and ELN or FARC guerrilla.

"Falsos positivos", a documentary film by Dado Carillo and Simone Bruno presents another "collateral effect" which stems from the practice of rewarding each "positivo", that is to say every killing of a licit target. Unfortunately, it is now widely confirmed this policy led to the spread of fake positive cases, with innocent and harmless civilians kidnapped, brought in the jungle and executed, then dressed up like guerrilla fighters.

Here you can see the trailer of "Falsos positivos":

Below, you can get a hint of how this policy aims to have an impact on "perceived security" as well. In fact, those soldiers cheering at people on the sides of major highways are part of Uribe's controversial Democratic Security policy. This particular action is aimed to make people feel safe and protected on the ways of communication, until some time ago among the most dangerous places ever in Colombia.