image source, Getty Images
“Venezuela will breathe a sigh of relief again. We will open the prison doors and watch the sun rise for thousands of innocent people who were unjustly imprisoned…”
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was unable to come to Oslo this Wednesday to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, his words echoed in the voice of his daughter Ana Corina Sosa Machado, who read a speech on his behalf.
In it, the politician highlighted the values of freedom, recalled Venezuela’s 2024 electoral performance and called for the return of the Venezuelan diaspora.
Weeks earlier, there was speculation that Machado, who went into hiding after last year’s elections, would travel to Norway. Later it was said that it was on its way and would arrive at some point.
“Unfortunately he is not in Norway and will not be on the stage at Oslo City Hall at 1 p.m. when the ceremony begins,” Kristian Berg Harpkiven, director of the institute and permanent secretary of the committee, told NRK Radio.
The Nobel laureate announced in October that Machado would receive the award for his “tireless work to promote the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people and for his fight for a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
image source, Getty Images
Machado has not appeared in public since January 9, when he led a demonstration in Caracas against the swearing in of Nicolás Maduro for a third term as Venezuela’s president.
In late 2024, he announced he was going underground amid the repression that followed protests against the disputed presidential results in which more than 2,000 people were arrested, including dozens of opposition leaders.
The awards ceremony comes at a time of tension in the Caribbean as Donald Trump’s US administration ordered the use of military forces to combat drug trafficking.
However, analysts claim that the Republican government, which declared Maduro the leader of a terrorist organization, is actually seeking a change of government in the South American country.
Maduro, for his part, is clinging to power, calling for peace and accusing the opposition of encouraging interventionism.
image source, Getty Images
The word freedom
If one word dominated Machado’s speech, it was “freedom.”
He recalled that Venezuela was one of the first countries in the world to have a constitution that protected individual rights such as religious freedom and promoted the separation of powers.
“From the beginning, we believed in something as simple as it was immense: that all people were born to be free. This belief became the soul of our nation,” he said.
He also highlighted Venezuela’s role as a refuge for those fleeing oppression by right-wing dictatorships in Latin America, the Spanish Civil War and for families fleeing conflicts in Syria, Lebanon and Colombia.
Machado believed that these freedoms had been lost since Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999.
“Since 1999, the regime has been committed to dismantling our democracy: violating the constitution, falsifying our history, corrupting the armed forces, purging independent judges, censoring the press, rigging elections, persecuting dissent and destroying our biodiversity.”
And he reminded people how important it is to fight for democracy.
“This award has a deep meaning: it reminds the world that democracy is essential for peace. And above all, the most important insight that Venezuelans can share with the world is the lesson they have learned on this long and difficult journey: if we want to have democracy, we must be willing to fight for freedom,” Machado said.
Under Chávez and then under Nicolás Maduro, after his death in 2013, Venezuela’s “economy collapsed,” he continued.
During the speech read by her daughter, the opposition leader recalled the bonanza that the country experienced in the 20th century with oil production, a resource that – as she assured – the Maduro government used to its own advantage and mismanaged in such a way that it led to a deep crisis.
image source, Getty Images
“Oil wealth was used not for liberation but for subjugation. Washing machines and refrigerators were distributed on national television to families living on dirt floors, not as symbols of progress but as spectacle.”
Machado recalled traveling around the country in 2024 during an electoral process in which he was banned from running.
However, he did not sit idle and supported diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, who, according to millions of electoral documents collected by the opposition, won the elections with 66% of the vote, although the National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Maduro the winner without providing evidence of this decision.
The Nobel laureate also insisted on her dream of the return of the diaspora in a country that has left nearly eight million people, many in search of better economic conditions.
“My dear Venezuelans, the world has been amazed at what we have achieved. And it will soon witness one of the most moving images of our time: the return of our people home.”
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