Cruz Melchor Eya Nchama

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Cruz Melchor Eya Nchama (born January 6, 1945, Kukumankok, Equatorial Guinea) is a Swiss politician, writer and Human Rights activist.

Eya Nchama studied at the Complutense University of Madrid.[1] He was head of the research department of the Graduate Institute of Development Studies attached to the University of Geneva[2] and an advisor to the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.[3] He is head of the Anti-Racism Information Service (ARIS)[4]

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 to break 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 of 1979, he coined the phrase "it's the same dog with a different collar", which gained him considerable notability.[1]

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.[1]

[edit] 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

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c Un guineano es elegido alcalde en el cantón de Ginebra by J. M. Bacheng, El Periódico de Suiza, nr. 35, June 2005 (Spanish)
  2. ^ Cruz Melchor Eya Nchama, veinticinco años después by Gustavo Bueno Sánchez, El Catoblepas, nr. 1, March 2002 (Spanish)
  3. ^ Report by Miguel Alfonso Martínez, Special Rapporteur, Commission On Human Rights, E/CN.4/Sub.2/1999/20, June 22, 1999
  4. ^ Geneva Humanitarian Forum