Cruz Melchor Eya Nchama

Cruz Melchor Eya Nchama (born January 6, 1945, Kukumankok, Equatorial Guinea) is a judge at the Court of Geneva.[1]

Justice Eya Nchama currently serves as a "judge assessor"[2] at the Conciliation Commission for Leases and Rents, which is where rental and lodging/housing matters are adjudicated.[3] Prior to his current role, he was an elected Swiss politician.

He is also a writer and well-known Human Rights activist within the international human rights community as well as being a prominent person within the Swiss/Geneva Canton.

Eya Nchama studied at the Complutense University of Madrid.[4] He was head of the research department of the Graduate Institute of Development Studies attached to the University of Geneva[5] and an advisor to the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.[6] He is head of the Anti-Racism Information Service (ARIS)[7]

While in exile in the early 1970s, Eya Nchama and others founded the ANRD (Alianza Nacional por la Restauración Democrática de Guinea Ecuatorial), which would be the main opposition to the Equatorial Guinean dictatorship. He was a fervent opponent of Macías Nguema, succeeding in 1976 in breaking the forced silence on the subject by then fascist Spanish government, presenting a detailed report to the UN Human Rights Commission. After the fall of Macías Nguema and the succession by Obiang in September 1979, he coined the phrase "it's the same dog with a different collar", which gained him considerable notability.[4]

Some years after his naturalisation, Eya Nchama was appointed head of the municipal council of Grand-Saconnex near Geneva, being the first black person to reach such a position in Switzerland.[4]

Works (selection)
  • Développement et droits de l’homme en Afrique, édition Publisud, Paris, 1991
  • El mundo en los acrósticos, y otros temas, Pentalfa, Oviedo, 2001
  • Misceláneas Guineo Ecuatorianas 1: del estado colonial al Estado dictatorial with Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel et al., Editorial Tiempos Próximos, Madrid, 2001

Notes
  1. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-12-17. Retrieved 2013-05-13.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. in French, the title is formally known as a "juge assesseur". This is a role of a judicial officer who aides the judge.
  3. http://ge.ch/justice/sites/default/files/justice/common/listes/magistrats/Magistrats_T_CIVIL_2013.pdf%5B%5D
  4. Un guineano es elegido alcalde en el cantón de Ginebra Archived 2007-03-10 at the Wayback Machine by J. M. Bacheng, El Periódico de Suiza, nr. 35, June 2005 (Spanish)
  5. Cruz Melchor Eya Nchama, veinticinco años después by Gustavo Bueno Sánchez, El Catoblepas, nr. 1, March 2002 (Spanish)
  6. Report by Miguel Alfonso Martínez, Special Rapporteur, Commission On Human Rights, E/CN.4/Sub.2/1999/20, June 22, 1999
  7. Geneva Humanitarian Forum Archived 2007-09-29 at the Wayback Machine
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