Venezuela’s Nobel Winner Says She Will Appear in Oslo After Missing Ceremony

Hija de Mariana Corina Machado , Ceremonia Nobel de la paz

María Corina Machado Says She Has Left Venezuela for Norway After Months in Hiding

María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader and this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, confirmed Wednesday that she is on her way to Oslo after spending months in hiding inside Venezuela, where the government had repeatedly threatened to arrest her

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In a phone call with Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Nobel Committee — an audio clip later released by the organizers — Machado said that her departure required a delicate operation and the help of people who risked their lives to secure her safe passage. “Once I arrive, I will finally be able to embrace my family and my children, whom I haven’t seen in two years,” she said.

Her reemergence and the dangerous route she took to leave the country highlight a new and tense chapter in Venezuela’s political turmoil. Machado’s selection for the Nobel Peace Prize had already stirred controversy, given her outspoken support for the use of U.S. military pressure to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power.

Machado’s arrival in Norway now raises an immediate and pressing question: returning home could almost certainly lead to her arrest.

Her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the Nobel Prize on her behalf during the ceremony in Oslo. The Norwegian Nobel Institute honored Machado for her long-standing efforts to push for democracy in Venezuela, while confusion over her whereabouts made this year’s ceremony one of the most unpredictable in recent memory.

Machado is believed to have been living clandestinely since the government escalated its crackdown on opposition figures and demonstrators who took to the streets after Maduro declared himself the winner of last year’s presidential election — a result contradicted by vote tallies verified by independent observers. Those counts showed a decisive victory for opposition candidate Edmundo González, who replaced Machado on the ballot after she was barred from running.

Her last public appearance was at a January protest, after months underground. Since then, the Maduro government has repeatedly threatened to detain her. During her time in hiding, her daughter accepted several international honors on her behalf, including the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize from the Council of Europe.