In his daughter’s remarks, the Venezuelan opposition leader said the award was important not only for his country but also for the world.
Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Venezuela’s Maria Colina Machado
Maria Colina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize after giving a powerful speech while accepting the award in her daughter’s absence.
OSLO – Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado said Wednesday in a speech given by her daughter at a ceremony that Machado was unable to attend, that democracies must be ready to fight for freedom in order to survive.
The Venezuelan opposition leader said the award has deep meaning not only for his country but also for the world.
“We remind the world that democracy is essential for peace,” she said through her daughter Ana Corina Sosa Machado. My voice cracked when I talked about my mother. “And above all, what we Venezuelans can offer the world are the lessons forged through this long and difficult journey: that to have democracy, you must be willing to fight for freedom.”
Machado didn’t make it to Oslo in time.
A large portrait of Machado with her signature smile was hung at Oslo City Hall. When Norwegian Nobel Committee Chairman Jørgen Watne Fridnes said during his speech that Machado would be coming to Oslo, the audience cheered and applauded.
Recalling past laureates Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa, he said fighters for democracy were expected to “pursue their objectives with a moral purity that their opponents will never display.”
“This is unrealistic. It’s unfair,” he said.
“No democracy functions in ideal conditions. Activist leaders must confront and resolve dilemmas that we on the sidelines can ignore. People living under dictatorships often have to choose between the difficult and the impossible.”
The 58-year-old engineer was scheduled to receive his award in the presence of King Harald in Oslo after more than a year in hiding in defiance of a decade-long travel ban imposed by authorities in his home country.
However, she was unable to arrive in the Norwegian capital in time for the ceremony.
“I’m in Oslo. I’m on my way to Oslo,” Machado told Fridnes in an audio recording released by the Norwegian Nobel Institute.
It was unclear where she was calling from.
“We don’t know exactly when she will land, but it will probably happen during the night,” Christian Berg Haabviken, the institute’s director, told Reuters.
Machado left Venezuela by boat on Tuesday for the Caribbean island of Curaçao, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. officials. In an audio recording of the call with Fridnes, she says she was on a plane. It was unclear where it came from.
“Selections that must be updated daily”
“Freedom is a choice that must be renewed every day, measured by our willingness and courage to defend it. For this reason, Venezuela’s cause transcends borders,” she said in a prepared speech.
“Those who choose freedom contribute not only to themselves but also to humanity.”
In 2024, Machado was barred from running for president despite winning the opposition party’s primary by a landslide. She went into hiding in August 2024 after authorities expanded arrests of opposition figures following voting disputes.
Electoral authorities and the Supreme Court declared President Nicolas Maduro the winner, but international observers and opposition parties say the candidate won easily and that the opposition released ballot-box-level tallies as evidence of victory.
“Fragile” democratic institutions
In his speech, Machado said Venezuelans did not immediately realize that their country was slipping into what he described as a dictatorship.
“By the time we realized how fragile our institutions had become, a man who had once led a military coup to overthrow democracy was elected president. Many thought that charisma could replace the rule of law,” Machado said, referring to the late President Hugo Chávez, who was elected in 1999 and held power until his death in 2013.
“Since 1999, the regime has dismantled our democracy.”
President Nicolas Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, said US President Donald Trump was trying to overthrow him in order to gain access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and that the Venezuelan people and military would resist such efforts.
Venezuela’s military plans to mount a guerrilla-style resistance or cause chaos in the event of a U.S. air or ground attack, according to sources familiar with the effort and planning documents seen by Reuters.
dedicated to trump
When Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, he dedicated a portion of the award to Trump, who said he himself was worthy of the honor.
Despite suspicions by U.S. intelligence agencies, she aligns with hawks close to President Trump who say Maduro has ties to criminal organizations that pose a direct threat to U.S. national security.
The Trump administration has ordered more than 20 military strikes against suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and off the Pacific coast of Central and South America in recent months.
Human rights groups, some Democrats, and Latin American countries condemned the attack as an illegal and extrajudicial killing of civilians.
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, Terje Solsvik, Miguel Pereira, Tom Little and Leonhard Foeger in Oslo and Ilze Filks in Stockholm; Editing by Alison Williams and Alex Richardson)
