OSLO, Dec 10 (Reuters) – Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado arrived in Oslo in the course of the evening on Thursday, the top of the Nobel committee stated, after she failed to succeed in the Norwegian capital in time to obtain her award at a ceremony held hours earlier.
The 58-year-old engineer had secretly left Venezuela for Oslo in defiance of a decade-long journey ban imposed by authorities in her house nation and after spending greater than a yr in hiding.
“I can confirm that Maria Corina Machado has arrived in Oslo,” Joergen Watne Frydnes advised folks gathered within the foyer of the Grand Lodge, the place Nobel laureates historically keep.
“She is on her way here, but she will go straight to meet her family … We’ll see you all tomorrow.”
ODD ANDERSEN through Getty Photographs
Her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, accepted the Nobel Prize in her identify and delivered a speech by her mom by which she stated democracies have to be ready to struggle for freedom so as to survive.
In her speech, Machado stated that the prize held profound significance, not just for her nation however for the world.
“It reminds the world that democracy is essential to peace,” she stated through her daughter, whose voice cracked when she spoke of her mom. “And more than anything, what we Venezuelans can offer the world is the lesson forged through this long and difficult journey: that to have a democracy, we must be willing to fight for freedom.”
LAUREATE LEFT VENEZUELA BY BOAT
Machado left Venezuela by boat on Tuesday and travelled to the Caribbean island of Curacao, from the place she departed on a personal aircraft for Norway, based on an individual accustomed to the matter.
The supply, who had been briefed by Machado’s camp, stated her escape from the Venezuelan coast was dealt with by her safety employees. The White Home didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Machado’s journey to Curacao, which was first reported by the Wall Avenue Journal.
A big portrait of a smiling Machado hung within the Oslo Metropolis Corridor to signify her. The viewers cheered and clapped when Norwegian Nobel Committee head Joergen Watne Frydnes stated throughout his speech that Machado could be coming to Oslo.
Evoking earlier laureates Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa, he stated fighters for democracy had been anticipated “to pursue their aims with a moral purity their opponents never display”.
“This is unrealistic. It is unfair,” he stated.
“No democracy operates in ideal circumstances. Activist leaders must confront and resolve dilemmas that we onlookers are free to ignore. People living under the dictatorship often have to choose between the difficult and the impossible.”
‘A CHOICE THAT MUST BE RENEWED EACH DAY’
“Freedom is a choice that must be renewed each day, measured by our willingness and our courage to defend it. For this reason, the cause of Venezuela transcends our borders,” she stated in her ready speech.
“A people who choose freedom contribute not only to themselves, but to humanity.”
In 2024, Machado was barred from working within the presidential election, regardless of having gained the opposition’s major by a landslide. She went into hiding in August 2024 after authorities expanded arrests of opposition figures following the disputed vote.
The electoral authority and high courtroom declared President Nicolas Maduro the winner, however worldwide observers and the opposition say its candidate handily gained and the opposition has revealed poll box-level tallies as proof of its victory.
‘FRAGILE’ DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS
In her speech, Machado stated Venezuelans didn’t realise in time that their nation was sliding into what she described as a dictatorship.
Referring to the late president Hugo Chavez, who was elected in 1999 and held energy till his dying in 2013, Machado stated: “By the time we recognised how fragile our institutions had become, a man who had once led a military coup to overthrow democracy, was elected president. Many thought that charisma could substitute the rule of law.”
“From 1999 onward, the regime dismantled our democracy.”
President Nicolas Maduro, in energy since 2013, says U.S. President Donald Trump is making an attempt to overthrow him to realize entry to Venezuela’s huge oil reserves and that Venezuelan residents and armed forces will resist any such try.
DEDICATED TO TRUMP
When Machado gained the Nobel Peace Prize in October, she devoted it partly to Trump, who has stated he himself deserved the honour.
She has aligned herself with hawks near Trump who argue that Maduro has hyperlinks to felony gangs that pose a direct risk to U.S. nationwide safety, regardless of doubts raised by the U.S. intelligence neighborhood.
The Trump administration has ordered greater than 20 army strikes in current months in opposition to alleged drug-trafficking vessels within the Caribbean and off Latin America’s Pacific coast.
Human rights teams, some Democrats and several other Latin American nations have condemned the assaults as illegal extrajudicial killings of civilians.
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, Terje Solsvik, Miguel Pereira, Tom Little and Leonhard Foeger in Oslo, Matt Spetalnick in Washington DC, Ilze Filks and Niklas Pollard in Stockholm; Modifying by Alison Williams, Alex Richardson and Michael Perry)
