WHO WE ARE

Marlies Stappers

Executive Director

Marlies Stappers is the initiator of Impunity Watch. Prior to that she worked as the coordinator of the Universal Justice programme at the Dutch development organisation Solidaridad. She is also the initiator of the Dutch Guatemala Platform Against Impunity, a group of Netherlands-based NGOs advocating and lobbying for accountability in Guatemala, which she coordinates to this day. Between 1995 and 2001, she lived in Guatemala, where she worked on accompanying Guatemalan refugees returning from Mexico and on mental health projects. She also worked as a researcher for the Guatemalan Historical Truth Commission and as an observer of the Peace Accords for the UN Mission in Guatemala (Minugua). She has conducted research in Ecuador into the sociocultural consequences of the activities of oil companies in the Northern Amazon region and worked as a campaign leader with Amnesty International. Her educational background is in Latin American studies.

 

Anna McTaggart

Development Adviser

Anna McTaggart has been involved with Impunity Watch since the beginning of 2008 as a Development Consultant, and since April 2010 as its Development Adviser, responsible for institutional and project development, as well as fundraising. Prior to this, she held various managerial and editorial positions with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, a group of seven media development NGOs in Southeast Europe of which she was a founder and first regional director. Latterly, she developed and ran the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence, in cooperation with BIRN, the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the ERSTE Foundation. Since 2003, she has published regularly on European integration and political reform in the Balkans, with a focus on Croatia. From 2000 to 2004, she worked for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting, IWPR, dealing with project management, monitoring and evaluation, fundraising and institutional development in relation to its Balkans, Caucasus and Central Asia programmes.  Her educational background is in European Law and Southeast European politics.

 

Annet van Offenbeek

Project Officer/ Memorialisation Project Coordinator
Annet van Offenbeek joined Impunity Watch in October 2009 as Project Officer. After completing her studies in International Relations at Utrecht University, she spent two years in Central America, where she worked for the regional human rights organisation CODEHUCA, based in Costa Rica, and was an “acompañante” for refugees returning to Guatemala. In the Netherlands, she became active with the Dutch Guatemala Solidarity Committee. She made a sidestep to fairtrade, working for the Max Havelaar Foundation at the Coffee Register for a couple of years. In 2000 she returned to the field of human rights, moving to Cambodia where she first worked for the High Commissioner for Human Rights and later for local human rights organisation LICADHO. 

 

Klaas de Jonge

Programme Adviser - Burundi Programme

Klaas de Jonge is a social scientist specialised in transitional justice, conflict analysis and community involvement in Africa. His considerable experience in this field extends to five years as a member of  the military wing of the ANC. This led to his arrest in 1985, followed by asylum in the Dutch embassy until he was exchanged for a South African commander of the apartheid regime in 1987. He began working with Impunity Watch in early 2009 to help prepare its new project in the Great Lakes region of Africa and develop its collaborative research approach. From 1998 to 2005, he worked in Rwanda with Penal Reform International (PRI), coordinating its research into the Gacaca jurisdictions and programme of support to the prison administration. He has also served as a consultant to Global Rights and UNICEF on participative action research and traditional community protection mechanisms in relation to women and children in DR Congo, and to IDEA on African traditional justice mechanisms in the context of grave and massive human rights violations. He has also held various academic positions, including at the University of Brasilia, where he was Visiting Professor for African and Race Studies from 1989-1994. For the past three years, he has provided lectures at Amsterdam University on transitional justice, conflict analysis and conflict resolution in Africa.

 

Julien Moriceau

Programme Manager - Burundi Programme

 

Triphonie Habonimana

Programme Assistant - Burundi Programme

 

David Taylor

Intern - Burundi Programme

 

Lucy Turner

Project Coordinator - Guatemala Programme
Lucy Turner joined Impunity Watch in June 2009 as its Project Coordinator in Guatemala, having previously worked as a Human Rights Officer at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN in Guatemala. There, she provided technical assistance to state institutions, the national Congress and civil society organisations on transitional justice mechanisms, and standards and principles of international human rights law. She also facilitated exchange of experiences and best practices in relation to processes of truth, justice and reparations both for Guatemalan state institutions and civil society organisations, facilitating their access to UN bodies and organs working on these topics. Earlier, she worked as a lawyer for Impunity Watch partner CALDH, during which time she litigated cases of forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture and massacres that occurred during Guatemala's internal armed confrontation. Ms Turner’s educational background is in law and anthropology.

 

Cristian Otzin

Project Officer - Guatemala Programme

Cristian Otzin joined the Impunity Watch team in Guatemala in October 2009 as Project Officer. An indigenous Mayan lawyer with many years experience working to pursue the rights of victims of the internal armed conflict in Guatemala, his work experience includes seeking justice for the families of victims of massacres and enforced disappearances as legal advisor both to the National Reparations Programme (PNR) and the Presidential Commission on Racism and Discrimination against the Indigenous Peoples of Guatemala (CODISRA).

 

Claudia de Minera

Administrative Assistant - Guatemala Programme

Claudia Minera brings over 20 years experience in providing secretarial, operational and logistical support to organisations across a range of sectors including business, not-for-profits and the United Nations, to Impunity Watch in Guatemala, where she began working in July 2009. Her recent experience includes the Global Fairness Initiative, the Access to Justice Programme of the Soros Foundation Guatemala and the United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA).

 

Marijana Toma

Project Coordinator - Serbia Programme

Marijana Toma joined Impunity Watch in January 2009 as Project Coordinator for Serbia. A historian by training, she has been involved in numerous transitional justice projects in the region and internationally. Prior to joining Impunity Watch, she worked for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Serbia on legal labour migration projects, and the Humanitarian Law Centre, where she worked as Project and Programme Coordinator on documenting war crimes, oral history, forced disappearances and transitional justice. She also worked on several projects with the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), while studying for an MPhil in transitional justice at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Ms Toma has published extensively in the fields of transitional justice, truth commissions, history, oral history methodology and serious human rights violations. 

 

Marija Manojlovic

Finance & Administration Officer - Serbia Programme     
 

Karen Hammink

Project Coordinator - Violence Against Women Project

Karen Hammink is a social scientist who joined Impunity Watch in February 2010 to develop its Perspectives project on impunity for violence against women, and coordinate work with conflict victims on Guatemala’s south coast. She has worked in development cooperation for more that ten years, including with Solidaridad and Oxfam-Novib, focusing on the empowerment of women. In this regard, she has co-developed and implemented policies in Central America, Mexico and Haiti, working closely with a variety of human rights and women’s organisations. She studied Spanish and the Languages and Cultures of Latin America, before undertaking postgraduate studies in development cooperation and gender and public policy. 

 

Sanne Weber

Intern - Violence Against Women Project (Guatemala)

Sanne Weber studied International Relations at Utrecht University and completed an MA in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights at the University of Essex. She first undertook an internship with Impunity Watch as part of her Masters' studies, and is currently helping to develop a new Perspectives  project on impunity for gender-based violence against women during conflict. From April 2009, she will be working on this from Guatemala.

 

Deana Jovanovic

Intern - Violence Against Women Project (Former Yugoslavia)