Venezuelan Nobel Prize winner Machado emerges in Oslo after months in hiding, Getty Images
Maria Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader, has resurfaced for the first time in months, embarking on a secret journey to Norway to collect her Nobel Peace Prize in what she called a “very dangerous” trip that carried enormous personal risk.
Machado appeared on a balcony at a central Oslo hotel in the early hours of Thursday, waving to a crowd of cheering supporters. It was her first public sighting since January.
Her smile was emotional, her voice shaky as she blew kisses, sang with the crowd and then climbed over security barriers to greet people directly. “Maria, Maria,” supporters shouted as they held their phones high to record what many described as a historic moment.
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The Nobel Institute awarded the prize for what it called her “struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy” in Venezuela. Earlier in the day, the award had been collected on her behalf by her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa.
For Machado, 58, the night carried deep personal weight. She told the BBC that she had not seen her children for almost two years, having sent them abroad for their safety.
“For over 16 months I have not been able to hug or touch anyone,” she said in an interview with the BBC’s Lucy Hockings. “Suddenly, in the matter of a few hours, I have been able to see the people I love the most, and touch them and cry and pray together.”
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Rosary beads hung from her neck during the interview. She said they were gifts pressed into her hands by supporters waiting outside the hotel.
Machado has been in hiding inside Venezuela, where President Nicolas Maduro’s government has labelled her a terrorist, threatened her with arrest and accused her of calling for foreign intervention. She is under a travel ban and had been warned she would be treated as a fugitive if she attempted to leave the country.
“Of course I am going back, I know exactly the risks I am taking. I am going to be in the place where I am most useful for our cause.”
Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, sat beside her during the interview. He told the BBC it had been “a situation of extreme danger” for her to reach Norway at all. “In the middle of the night to have you here, it is incredible,” he said. “It is hard to describe what it means to the Nobel committee and to all of us.”
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Machado has long been one of the most prominent voices in Venezuela’s opposition, repeatedly condemning Maduro’s government as criminal and urging Venezuelans to unite. She was barred from running in last year’s presidential election, which Maduro won. Many governments dismissed the vote as neither free nor fair.
She told the BBC that Maduro’s regime survives on criminal funding linked to drug trafficking and human smuggling, a charge the Venezuelan government has firmly denied. “We need to address this regime not as a conventional dictatorship but as a criminal structure,” she said. “We need the international community to cut those inflows.”
Asked whether her prize would be contradicted if violence were used to remove Maduro, Nobel chairman Frydnes said the responsibility for peace rested with the government in Caracas. “The power lies in the Maduro regime,” he said. “They have the responsibility to make sure this is a peaceful transition.”
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Machado says she and her team are prepared to form a government if given the chance. She added that she had offered talks to Maduro’s representatives for a peaceful path forward, but “they rejected it”.
Even after being banned from the ballot, Machado campaigned for her replacement candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, whose opposition tallies suggested he won by a wide margin. Maduro was nevertheless declared the victor.
Following the announcement of her Nobel win in October, Machado pointedly praised Donald Trump, the United States president, who has spoken openly about his own wish to receive the Peace Prize and is locked in military tension with Venezuela.
For now, Machado savours her brief moment of freedom in Oslo. But she insists her fight is not over. “I am here because many men and women risked their lives for me to arrive,” she told the BBC. “I will keep fighting until Venezuela is free.”
