Seguridad en el Caribe insular colombiano.la expansión estatal en la Intendencia Nacional de San Andrés y Providencia, 1912-1930

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the vision on security in the discourses and strategies implemented by the Colombian government to ensure sovereignty over the Colombian insular Caribbean. Methodology: The work is approached from the methods of the discipline of History, using primary sources of the General Archive of the Nation and the National Library, especially the reports of the mayors, various documents of the Congress and the commercial press. Originality: The article is part of the discussions on security in Colombia that, although it has had important developments in the last forty years, have been focused on understanding the phenomenon as a product of the political conflict and violence unleashed in continental Colombia, from the appearance of guerrillas and armed groups in the sixties, leaving aside what happened on the island in the Colombian Caribbean. Conclusions: The governments of the Colombian State, with the creation of the National Intendancy of San Andrés and Providencia in 1912, had the purpose of exercising greater control in the insular Caribbean and at the same time strengthening the territorial integrity of Colombia. To achieve this, they used an incipient vision of state security, that initially sought to avoid what happened with Panama; that is, the dismemberment of national territories. This vision evolved, in the discourse, from 1930 with the arrival of liberal governments to power, who incorporated geopolitical factors and the vision of defense through the proposal of the development of a military infrastructure in the archipelago.