Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado vows to bring award back to Venezuela

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By Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche

OSLO, Dec 11 (Reuters) – Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado said she planned to take her award back to Venezuela, but declined to say on Thursday when she would return to her home country after leaving in great secrecy to receive the honour.

Venezuelan opposition leader Machado arrived in Oslo in the early hours of Thursday, failing to reach the Norwegian capital in time for the prize ceremony held hours earlier.

The 58-year-old engineer had secretly left Venezuela for Oslo in defiance of a decade-long travel ban imposed by authorities and after spending more than a year in hiding.

“I came to receive the prize on behalf of the Venezuelan people and I will take it back to Venezuela at the correct moment,” she told reporters at Norway’s parliament, dressed in white, declining to say when this would be.

SAYS VENEZUELA HAS BECOME A ‘CRIMINAL HUB’

When Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, she dedicated it in part to U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said he himself deserved the honour.

She has aligned herself with hawks close to Trump who argue that Maduro has links to criminal gangs that pose a direct threat to U.S. national security, despite doubts raised by the U.S. intelligence community.

Speaking at a press conference, Machado was asked if she would support a U.S. invasion of her home country, and said her country had already been invaded by actors such as Russian and Iranian agents and drug cartels.

“This has turned Venezuela into the criminal hub of the Americas. And what sustained the regime is a very powerful and strongly funded repression system,” she said alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere.

“Where do those funds come from? Well, from drug trafficking, from the black market of oil, from arms trafficking, and from human trafficking. We need to cut those flows.”

Venezuela’s Ministry of Information did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Machado’s remarks.

MACHADO SAYS TRUMP’S ACTIONS ARE ‘DECISIVE’

Her appearance in Norway comes amid soaring tensions between Venezuela and the United States with the Trump administration having ordered more than 20 military strikes in recent months against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the region.

Maduro and his government have always denied any involvement in crime and have accused the U.S. of seeking regime change out of a desire to control Venezuela’s natural resources, especially its vast oil reserves.

On Wednesday, Trump said the U.S. had seized an oil tanker under sanctions off the coast of Venezuela, in a move that sent oil prices higher as speculation over further U.S. action mounted.

“I believe that President Trump’s actions have been decisive to reach the point where we are right now, in which the regime is weaker than ever,” Machado said at a later event, referring to the Venezuelan government.

She said Maduro’s rule would come to an end and there was a need to prepare a transition in her country.

“I’m going back to Venezuela regardless of when Maduro goes out. He’s going out, but the moment will be determined by when I’m finished doing the things that I came out to do,” she added, without going into further detail.

BARRED FROM RUNNING IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Following her pre-dawn arrival, Machado greeted dozens of people from the balcony of Oslo’s Grand Hotel, where Nobel laureates traditionally stay, waving and singing the Venezuelan national anthem along with the crowd.

Later, Machado came down to the street and climbed over crowd barriers to hug and shake hands with people who had gathered in the cold for the chance to see her.

Machado was barred from running in the presidential election last year, despite having won the opposition’s primary by a landslide. She went into hiding in August that year after authorities expanded arrests of opposition figures following the disputed vote.

The electoral authority and top court declared President Nicolas Maduro the winner, but international observers and the opposition say its candidate handily won and the opposition has published ballot box-level tallies as evidence of its victory.

A report from a U.N. Fact-Finding Mission released on Thursday said Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard committed serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity over more than a decade in targeting political opponents, often with impunity.

Members of Maduro’s administration described a previous U.N. report containing similar accusations as being “plagued with falsehoods”.

Machado thanked the men and women who had risked their lives to help her leave Venezuela but would not be drawn on details of her departure other than to say U.S. authorities had also provided support.

“One day I will be able to tell you because certainly I don’t want to put them in risk right now,” she said. “It was quite an experience.”

Late on Wednesday, Venezuelan Minister of the Interior Diosdado Cabello said on a weekly broadcast that Machado left the country “without drama” but provided no details.

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik, Gwladys Fouche, Miguel Pereira, Tom Little and Leonhard Foeger in Oslo and Ilze Filks in Stockholm; writing by Niklas Pollard; editing by Alex Richardson and Andrew Heavens)