CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado didn’t arrive in Norway early enough to receive her Nobel Peace Prize in person, but her trip elicited mixed feelings in her country, where many backed her precisely because she had not left her homeland.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado didn’t arrive in Norway early enough to receive her Nobel Peace Prize in person, but her trip elicited mixed feelings in her country, where many backed her precisely because she had not left her homeland.
Machado’s daughter accepted the award on her behalf in a ceremony Wednesday that became a rally for democracy, and equally, an indictment of Venezuela’s government, with attendees hearing in detail documented human rights abuses carried out against real or perceived opponents of President Nicolás Maduro.
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“She wants to live in a free Venezuela, and she will never give up on that purpose,” Ana Corina Sosa told the audience in Oslo before reading her mother’s prepared remarks. “That is why we all know, and I know, that she will be back in Venezuela very soon.”
Machado greeted supporters from an Oslo hotel balcony early Thursday morning after arriving in the Norwegian capital.
Neither Machado nor her staff explained when and how she left Venezuela or what had delayed her arrival in Oslo.
Machado has not been seen in public since Jan. 9, when she was briefly detained after joining supporters in an anti-government protest in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital.
