VILLA DEL ROSARIO, Colombia. – María Corina Machado played the main role another (almost) impossible chapter in the history of the fight for freedoms in Latin America. A crazy one-way odyssey, despite the unnecessary help of the United States, and an adventure with uncertain fate and multiple dangers for the return if it means going back underground and not taking the reins of a liberated country.
The journey overland from Caracas to the Caribbean coast, in costume and wig, along with two other brave men, shows a country besieged by the revolution, but that couldn’t escape the most famous escapade in years. It also shows that since the arrest on January 9th Their secret services didn’t know where Machado was hiding.
The exit campaign also shows what Venezuela is today: a country full of checkpoints (he faced ten police, military and intelligence checkpoints) usually designed to make noise (blackmail) and harass anything that sounds like dissidence. The Peace Lab has even confirmed that Chavista agents are searching cell phones for information about the Nobel Peace Prize in order to punish suspects.
A new political victory over the dictatorship that takes into account “Refugee” to Machado, as his attorney general Tarek William Saab announced days ago. The crimes she would be accused of if she fell into the hands of Chavista agents are: Terrorism, conspiracy and hate speech, a classic in the revolutionary handbook.
Machado used a path previously taken by the respected president of the legitimate Supreme Court. Antonio Marvalwho traveled by road to the coast of Falcón (without the protection of the Super Hornet fighters from the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford) and sailed there together with several people Curacao for almost seven hours in rough seas.
Also Lilian Tintorithe wife of former political prisoner Leopoldo López, left the Spanish embassy in Caracas, where she had sought refuge for several weeks in 2019, hidden in a diplomatic vehicle, to reach the coast with her 16-month-old daughter Federica.
Most refugees never gave full information about how they managed to escape in order to ensure the exit of the next one. In Tintori’s case, he apparently came to Aruba to fly to Europe.
“I was hidden in Caracas for a month and then I went Puerto Cabello. On the journey to the coast he wore no costume, but was well bearded and wore a cap. I was in a car with three other people and we passed five checkpoints. Only on one of them, at 4 a.m., did they stop us. The officer looked inside but asked the driver to continue driving. “It was certainly a moment of great pressure,” recalled the former Caracas commissioner for LA NACIÓN. Ivan Simonovisthe most symbolic political prisoner for Hugo Chávez.
“Then we went by sea to an island, but I can’t say which one. There I flew to the US with two friends in a private plane. I was a co-pilot,” added Simonovis, who was imprisoned for 15 years until his release in 2019 to maintain the official story of the 2002 coup. People from the regime, officials or soldiers who were dissatisfied in some way had to take partin line with the regime,” Simonovis concluded.
If there is an expert in border crossings, he is one Juan Guaidowho was acting president during Maduro’s challenge in Donald Trump’s first term. Guaidó crossed the border with Colombia in February 2019 to lead the humanitarian caravan that wanted to enter Venezuela. He did it with two employees. And he did it at least two more times.the last for his final exile, although the government of Gustavo Petro reluctantly accepted him.
But Guaidó’s big milestone was his two returns to Venezuela via Maiquetía Airport. In two very clever operations they managed to outwit Chavismo, although the second time a group of radicals and Chavista officials staged a protest rally that also resulted in attacks.
The leaks from Antonio Ledezma and Leopoldo Lopezwho accompanied their ally Machado in Oslo. The former mayor of Caracas did so on one of the bridges that connect the Venezuelan state of Táchira and the Colombian department of Norte de Santander. After outsmarting the guards who kept him under house arrest, he crossed the country and passed 29 checkpoints. “A National Guard recognized me and winked at me.”he described to LA NACIÓN at the time.
TO David Smolanskia trusted official of Luis Almagro in the OAS, had to leave the Brazilian border at full speed. to the young man Andres Villavicencioan activist from Primero Justicia, he became famous through social networks on the election night of July 28th the last great escape until the epic on Tuesday.
“I was an election witness and defended the votes of our candidate in a voting center in Punto Fijo. Edmundo González won in my center with 82% of the votes: 1046 against 145. I went out to read the result to the 200 waiting neighbors. One of them recorded the moment, which went viral, and the next day I had the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) outside my house. They harassed me for two weeks until On August 10th they informed me that they would arrest me and take me to Helicoide. I packed my bags with my family and coordinated my departure without a passport via a trocha (secret crossing) in Zulia. I escaped near Maicao, a complicated escape. His passport was canceled but is valid outside Venezuela until its expiration date. Thanks to this I was able to fly from Medellín to Madrid and that is why I am now in exile,” said Villavicencio.
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