Machado assures that he will return to Venezuela
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who reappeared in July in Oslo after more than a year in hiding and secretly left Venezuela, assured that she would return to her country, without giving details on the date on which she could return. “He came (to Oslo) to receive the (Nobel Peace) Prize on behalf of the Venezuelan city and he brought it back to Venezuela at the right time. In fact, I won’t say when it will take place,” he told reporters during his visit to the Norwegian capital. Previously, in an interview, I assured that I would come back even if I knew “exactly the risks” that it entails.
“Besides, I’m going to come back. I’m facing exactly the risks I’m running. I’m going to be where I’m most useful to our cause,” the politician said in an interview with the BBC published last July. “A few years ago, the place I thought I should be was Venezuela; the place I thought I should be today, on our behalf, was Oslo,” he added.
“For more than 16 months, he could not hug or touch his mother. Suddenly, in a few hours, he was able to see the people who wanted him the most, touch them, cry and pray together,” he added after landing this morning in Oslo, where he was received by his children and dozens of faithful.
Machado has long denounced the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as “criminal” and called on Venezuelans to unite to overthrow him. “The Venezuelan government says I’m a terrorist and I have to spend the rest of my life in prison, and they’re looking for me,” I said. “As soon as I leave Venezuela today, under these circumstances, it is very, very dangerous,” Machado admitted.
If he was banned from running in this year’s presidential elections
last year when Maduro won a third six-year term, but the results were widely underestimated internationally because they were neither free nor fair. “We must approach this regime not as a conventional dictatorship, but as a criminal structure,” says Machado, who accuses Maduro’s regime of being financed by criminal activities such as drug trafficking and human trafficking, and reiterates his calls for the international community to help Venezuela “cut off these flows” of criminal resources.
When Machado was asked whether he would support a U.S. military attack on Venezuelan soil, given Washington’s recent attacks on drug-laden hams, Machado did not respond directly, but accused Maduro of “handing over our sovereignty to criminal organizations.” He said he and his team were ready to form a government in Venezuela and that he had offered to meet with Maduro’s team to seek a peaceful transition, but “he refused.” (EFE)
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