“Venezuela has already been invaded by Russian agents and criminals”

The odyssey of escape Maria Corina Machado originally from Venezuela could be overshadowed by the challenge of returning to her country, where she has been living illegally for more than a year. The leader of the opposition to Chavism promised this Thursday from Oslo, after receiving her Nobel Peace Prize although she did not arrive in time to participate in the ceremony, that will return to Venezuelan territory and he will take the prize with him, assuming the risks to which he exposes himself.

During a press conference with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Corina Machado was asked if the Maduro government knew where she was hiding. “I don’t think so, and they would have done everything possible to stop me from coming here.”he revealed. During his appearance, he stressed that the Nobel Prize is a recognition of the struggle of the Venezuelan people for democracy and he dedicated it to all compatriot mothers whose children are imprisoned or in exile.

The opponent, who has not participated in a public event since last January, confirmed her intention to return to Venezuela, without revealing when or how she would do so. But he guaranteed that he would return to hiding with his people “if the regime is still in power”: “They won’t know where I am, we have the means to do it”.

When asked if she would support a hypothetical US military invasion promoted by Donald TrumpMaría Corina Machado responded by attacking the Chavista regime: “Venezuela has already been invaded by Russian and Iranian agentsby the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, we have the Colombian guerrillas, drug cartels and criminal gangs.” In this sense, he denounced that his country has become “the epicenter of crime in America” ​​and that the repressive system of the Caracas government is financed by “the trafficking of drugs, weapons and human beings.”

The dissident, visibly moved, expressed her “hope that Venezuela will be free again”, transformed into “a country of opportunities and democracy”. “Democracy guarantees peace in a society. But there is no democracy without freedomand freedom is an individual and rational decision,” he continued, repeating the phrase from the Nobel Prize acceptance speech read by his daughter, Ana Corina Sosa.

“I came to receive the award on behalf of the Venezuelan people and I will bring it back to Venezuela at the appropriate time. Of course, I will not say when,” Machado revealed shortly before the press conference, during a visit to the Norwegian Parliament. The Maduro regime had banned Machado from leaving the country since clashes between security forces and demonstrators during student marches against Chavismo in February 2014.

Machado left Venezuela by boat on Tuesdaywith the help of certain members of the regime. He visited Curaçao, a Caribbean island located approximately 64 kilometers from the coast of Venezuela under Dutch sovereignty, at whose airport the United States has a cooperative security center. The opposition lawmaker expressed gratitude to those who “risked their lives” so she could travel to Oslo.

His departure from hiding, with the support of the Nobel Peace Prize, comes at a critical moment in relations between Caracas and Washington due to the escalation of tensions due to the American military deployment in the Caribbean to fight drug trafficking and the twenty attacks on suspected drug boats. This Wednesday, US Coast Guard soldiers seized a sanctioned Venezuelan oil tanker that the Maduro government called an “act of international piracy.”

The words of María Corina Machado, emphasizing that Maduro has made Venezuela the base of operations for crime in Latin America, follow the complaint filed a few days ago by Hugo Armando The chicken Carvajal. The former head of Venezuelan military intelligence and one of the most powerful figures in the Chavista governments revealed in a letter to Trump an alleged plan by Maduro to create the Cartel of the Suns and flood the United States with cocaine in an operation that also included the FARC and the Colombian National Liberation Army or spies from Cuba and Hezbollah.

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