Core Team

Mô Bleeker has been working since 1982 in societies engaged in process of transition from war to peace in Central America, Colombia, Balkan, South and South Eastern Asia, Central Asia, Central, North and Western Africa. In 2003, she assumed the position of Swiss Peacebuilding Adviser, for the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), based in Guatemala. From 2004 on, she served as a senior adviser in the FDFA in charge of Dealing with the Past and Genocide prevention. In 2011, she was appointed head of the task force for dealing with the past and prevention of atrocities in the FDFA. Mô Bleeker has studied anthropology, religion sciences, journalism and social communication at the University of Fribourg. She also holds a post-graduate diploma in development studies at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

Jonathan Sisson is a senior advisor for the Dealing with the Past program of the Political Division IV Human Security in the regions of Eastern Europe and the West Balkans. He has written and edited several studies on dealing with the legacy of violent conflict in the Balkans, including a comparative study on the impact of transitional justice mechanisms in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Guatemala ten years after the peace agreements in those two countries. More recently, he has focused on the issue of missing persons in Kosovo and in the North Caucasus. Active in the peace movement since the Vietnam War, Jonathan Sisson is a long-standing member of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) and has been the IFOR representative at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva since 1996. Mr Sisson studied Comparative Religions at Kenyon College (USA) and Classical Philology and Biblical Exegesis at the University of Basel.

Elisabeth Baumgartner graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Fribourg, is admitted to the Bar in Zurich since 2002 and holds a Master in International Humanitarian Law of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. After having practiced as a lawyer in Zurich, she joined the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and worked in Colombia and Ethiopia. She then worked as a researcher at the University of Lucerne and as a lawyer for the Office of the Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) in Freetown. She is currently teaching international criminal law at the University of Lucerne, where she also writes her PhD thesis in international criminal law on victim participation at the International Criminal Court. In 2009/2010 she worked as a coordinator of the Mediation Support Project for swisspeace during the absence of Matthias Siegfried. In 2011 she joined the Dealing with the Past team.

Jeremy Condor is an independent trainer, facilitator and programme development consultant, working with funding agencies, bilateral and multilateral organizations and human rights organizations worldwide. He has considerable experience in Asia, the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe. Jeremy Condor continues to work in conflict and post-conflict environments notably Bosnia, Gaza, Lebanon, Tajikistan, Cambodia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and Liberia.

Tobias Affolter holds an M.A. in History, Sociology and Religion Science from the University of Berne. After graduating, he worked for the Country Analysis Section of the Swiss Federal Administrative Court. There he conducted Country-of-Origin-Information researches mainly on minority rights situations in the Middle East and Turkey. From 2009 to 2010, he worked as a project assistant for the Hungarian National Committee of IUCN in Budapest, where he was involved in the implementation of IUCN-Governance Committee projects on decentralisation. At swisspeace, he is working for the Dealing with the Past Program and responsible for the organisation and logistics of the DwP Course and the website.

Rahel Fischer holds a M.A. degree in history, communications, and drama studies from the Universities of Berne and Fribourg. Before joining swisspeace, she worked as a researcher for Caritas Zürich and for the department of modern history at the University of Berne. For many years Rahel Fischer has been involved in the human rights movement and since 2004 has served as a board member of the Swiss section of Amnesty International. At the Center for Peacebuilding (KOFF) she is responsible for the coordination of the KOFF training series and is working on issues of gender and peacebuilding.