Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Maria Corina Machado has declared that authorities in her home country would have attempted everything possible to prevent her journey to Norway, after she emerged publicly for the first time in nearly a year.<\/p>\n
Machado greeted supporters from an Oslo hotel balcony in the early hours of Thursday following a high-risk exit from Venezuela, where she had been in hiding since January.<\/p>\n
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The journey, which purportedly included navigating 10 military checkpoints and crossing the Caribbean by fishing vessel, brought her to the Norwegian capital to collect her Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n
During a news conference at Norway\u2019s parliament, the 58-year-old right-wing opposition figure delivered sharp criticism of President Nicolas Maduro\u2019s administration, asserting that the government deploys national resources to suppress its population.<\/p>\n
When questioned about an oil tanker seized by Washington on Wednesday, she argued this demonstrated how the regime operates. Asked whether she would support a United States invasion, Machado claimed Venezuela had already been invaded by Russian and Iranian agents alongside drug cartels.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has turned Venezuela into the criminal hub of the Americas,\u201d she said, standing alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat sustains the regime is a very powerful and strongly funded repression system. Where do those funds come from? Well, from drug trafficking, from the black market of oil, from arms trafficking and from human trafficking. We need to cut those flows.\u201d<\/p>\n
The trip reunited her with family members she had not seen in almost two years, including her daughter, who accepted<\/a> the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf at Wednesday\u2019s ceremony.<\/p>\n Aligned with Trump<\/p>\n The political leader has welcomed international sanctions and US military intervention in Venezuela, a move her critics say harkens back to a dark past.<\/p>\n The US has a long history of interference in the region<\/a>, particularly in the 1980s, when it propped up repressive right-wing governments through coups and funded paramilitary groups across Latin America responsible for mass killings, forced disappearances and other grave human rights abuses.<\/p>\n Venezuelan authorities cited Machado\u2019s support for sanctions and US intervention when they barred her from running for office in last year\u2019s presidential election, where she had intended to challenge Maduro. Machado has accused Venezuela\u2019s president of stealing the July 2024 election, which was criticised by international observers.<\/p>\n Praising the Trump administration\u2019s approach, Machado said the president\u2019s actions had been \u201cdecisive to reach the point where we are right now, in which the regime is weaker than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n She insisted she would return home but did not say when. \u201cI\u2019m going back to Venezuela regardless of when Maduro goes out. He\u2019s going out, but the moment will be determined by when I\u2019m finished doing the things that I came out to do,\u201d she told reporters.<\/p>\n Her escape comes as tensions between Washington and Caracas have intensified<\/a> sharply. The Trump administration has positioned major naval forces in the Caribbean and conducted strikes against alleged drug vessels since September. The US seized what Trump called a \u201cvery large<\/a>\u201d oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Machado has aligned herself with right-wing hawks close to Trump who argue that Maduro has links to criminal gangs that pose a direct threat to US national security, despite doubts raised by the US intelligence community.<\/p>\n