Nobel laureate Machado details secret escape from Venezuela

“A great many people risked their lives to help me escape,” said María Corina Machado, the 58-year-old Venezuelan opposition leader and this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate. She made the remark after slipping out of her hiding place in Venezuela in disguise and arriving in Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 11 local time.

Machado appeared at a hotel in Oslo early that morning wearing jeans and a padded jacket and embraced her supporters. In an interview with the BBC, she said that for the past 16 months, she had been unable to touch or hug anyone, including her three children. She has lived in seclusion under the threat of arrest by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has ruled the country since 2013. She had also been listed as a wanted person and was banned from leaving Venezuela.

Supporters who met Machado in Oslo repeatedly shouted “Valiente,” the Spanish word for “brave,” and sang the Venezuelan national anthem in response. Machado said the Maduro government considers her a fugitive and has warned that she will be arrested if she returns, yet she emphasized that she will “of course go back to Venezuela.” She accused the administration of being not a conventional dictatorship but a criminal syndicate involved in drug and human trafficking.

Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize for leading a pro-democracy movement against Maduro’s government, which has suppressed political opponents and engaged in electoral fraud. She left her safe house in Venezuela and traveled to Oslo under U.S. protection to attend the ceremony. Severe weather and other delays prevented her from attending the Dec. 9 event, and her daughter Ana, 34, who lives in the United States, accepted the prize on her behalf.

Machado’s escape from Venezuela was carried out in strict secrecy and resembled a spy thriller. According to the Wall Street Journal, she wore a wig and a disguise as she passed through more than 10 military checkpoints over the course of 10 hours. She then boarded a wooden boat, crossed the Caribbean Sea, and headed for Curaçao, a nearby Dutch territory. From there, she flew to Norway on a private aircraft. Venezuelan opposition networks reportedly supported the operation for at least two months and played an active role.

Heightened military tension in the Caribbean added to the complexity of the escape. U.S. President Donald Trump recently labeled Maduro the head of a drug trafficking ring and ordered repeated strikes on Venezuelan vessels, raising the stakes. Opposition groups reportedly stayed in constant communication with U.S. forces to ensure Machado’s wooden boat would not be mistaken for a narcotics vessel. As she crossed the Caribbean, two U.S. Navy F-18 fighter jets entered the Gulf of Venezuela and circled in a tight pattern for about 40 minutes to provide air cover. The Wall Street Journal reported that this was the closest a U.S. military aircraft had approached Venezuelan airspace since September.


Keun-Hyung Yoo noel@donga.com