Venezuelan opposition leader makes first public appearance after months in hiding

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who has been in hiding for months, has told the BBC that she knows “exactly the risks” she’s taking by travelling to Norway to collect her Nobel Peace Prize.

Machado appeared in Oslo in the middle of the night, waving from the balcony of a hotel. It was the first time she has been seen in public since January.

She made the covert journey despite a travel ban and a threat from the Venezuelan government that she would be labelled as a fugitive if she made the trip.

In an emotional moment, Machado waved to cheering supporters who had gathered outside the Norwegian capital’s Grand Hotel, blowing them kisses and singing with them.

To their delight, she then came outside and greeted them in person, climbing over the security barricades to get closer.

“Maria!” “Maria!” they shouted, holding their phones aloft to record the historic moment.

Earlier on Wednesday, her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her mother’s behalf.

The Nobel Institute awarded Machado the prize this year for “her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy” in Venezuela.

Machado had not seen her children in about two years, having sent them away from Venezuela for their own safety.

In an interview with the BBC’s Lucy Hockings after her balcony appearance, Machado said she had missed their graduations, and the weddings of her daughter and one of her sons.

“For over 16 months I haven’t been able to hug or touch anyone,” she said in the interview. “Suddenly in the matter of a few hours I’ve been able to see the people I love the most, and touch them and cry and pray together.”

During the BBC interview, Machado had many rosary beads hanging around her neck, which she said people had given to her outside the hotel.

Machado has long denounced President Nicolás Maduro’s government as “criminal” and called on Venezuelans to unite to depose it.

She has long been one of the most respected voices in the country’s opposition but was barred from running in last year’s presidential elections, in which Maduro won a third six-year term in office. Many nations view his rule as illegitimate.

Last month, Venezuela’s attorney general said Machado would be considered a fugitive if she travelled to Norway to collect her prize, saying she was accused of “acts of conspiracy, incitement of hatred, and terrorism”.

The details of her journey from Venezuela to Norway were kept so tightly under wraps, that even the Nobel Institute did not know where she was or whether she would be in Oslo in time to collect her award at the prize ceremony.

Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, had described her journey as “a situation of extreme danger”.

Sitting next to her during the BBC interview, Frydnes said it was an “emotional” moment for him.

“In the middle of the night to have you here, it’s incredible,” he said. “It’s hard to describe what it means to the Nobel committee and to all of us.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that to escape Venezuela, Machado wore a disguise, managed to get through 10 military checkpoints without being caught, and left on a wooden fishing skiff at a coastal fishing village.

The plan was two months in the making, it reports, citing a person close to the operation, and she was assisted by a Venezuelan network that helps people flee the country. The US was also involved, the report says, but it is unclear to what extent.

However Machado did not give details of her journey when asked by the BBC.

“They [the Venezuelan government] say I’m a terrorist and have to be in jail for the rest of my life and they’re looking for me,” she said. “So leaving Venezuela today, in these circumstances, is very, very dangerous.

“I just want to say today that I’m here, because many men and women risked their lives in order for me to arrive in Oslo.”

There has been much speculation about whether Machado will be able to safely return to Venezuela.

“Of course I’m going back,” she told the BBC. “I know exactly the risks I’m taking.”

“I’m going to be in the place where I’m most useful for our cause,” she continued. “Until a short time ago, the place I thought I had to be was Venezuela, the place I believe I have to be today, on behalf of our cause, is Oslo.”

After her Peace Prize win, Machado made a point to praise US President Donald Trump, who is open about his own ambitions for the Peace Prize and is locked in ongoing military tension with Venezuela.

On Wednesday, he announced the US military had seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, a sharp escalation in Washington’s pressure campaign against Nicolás Maduro’s government.

The Trump administration alleges the vessel was under sanction and was involved in an “illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organisations”.

The Venezuelan government accused the US of theft and piracy.