"I am grateful and honored to invite you to the Historical Memory Group of the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation," wrote historian Gonzalo Sánchez to Aldo Civico in a letter this week. The group is formed by scholars whose mission is to present a public report on the reasons for the emergence and evolution of illegal armed groups in Colombia. The Commission was established by an act of Congress and is chaired by the Vice President of Colombia.

Dr. Civico will be part of a team led by anthropologist Maria Victoria Uribe and lawyer Ivan Orozco which will focus on the free testimonies by members of the paramilitary within the context of the Justice and Peace Law.

In particular, the research will focus on the social-legal analysis of the free testimonies, the content and the impact of the "truth" of the perpetrators, and therefore to advance and to contribute to the State's responsibility to record and to remember. Finally, the research aims to show how how the free testimonies rendered by the paramilitaries, in themselves, are a theatre which represents in ritual manner, brokered by various organs of the judiciary, the interaction between the memories of perpetrators and victims. Dr. Civico will especially focus on the specific method of testimonies provided by those demobilized paramilitary leader an extradited to the United States, such as don Berna, Salvartore Mancuso, and Jorge 40.