‘Observe the trail of exiles’: María Corina Machado’s US-aided escape from Venezuela

[ad_1] T housands of Venezuelan migrants have braved the seas off Falcón state in recent times, fleeing their shattered homeland in direction of the Caribbean islands of Aruba and Curaçao in rickety picket boats referred to as yolas . Many lost their lives chasing a brighter future after their overcrowded vessels capsized or have been smashed aside by rocks.

This week, the opposition chief María Corina Machado obtained a style of that perilous journey herself, because the Nobel laureate started her surreptitious 5,500-mile-plus odyssey from her authoritarian homeland to Norway to gather her peace prize.

US officers say the 58-year-old politician slipped out of Venezuela on Tuesday, secretly travelling to Curaçao, a former Dutch colony that is still a part of the dominion of the Netherlands, by boat earlier than persevering with her voyage by airplane. “Her journey was delayed for a number of hours as a consequence of dangerous climate and tough seas,” <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-10/nobel-winner-machado-leaves-venezuela-before-prize-ceremony?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2NTM4MTE2OCwiZXhwIjoxNzY1OTg1OTY4LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUNzE4SFpUOU5KTFMwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI0Q0M5MjBBRUZBREE0NTE1OTQxMzREOTdEMUNCQjgwOSJ9.RUqKadkJvob5FjyM4PHurihOT9tRcrrf1zAd_9ZT8-4" data-link-name="in body link">reported Bloomberg, which stated Machado had been aided by the Trump administration in addition to rogue members of the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro’s regime.

“So many individuals … risked their lives to ensure that me to reach in Oslo and I’m very grateful to them,” Machado informed the chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, by cellphone on Wednesday earlier than boarding a Norway-bound flight.

The main points of Machado’s cinematic maritime escape by means of the southern Caribbean stay sparse, having been carefully guarded to guard her as she emerged from almost a yr in hiding and made her break for Europe.

Machado gestures from a balcony of the Grand Resort in Oslo within the early hours of Thursday after her arrival in Norway. {Photograph}: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Photographs Information of her flight despatched the hearsay mill into overdrive, with Venezuelans questioning whether or not Machado had stowed away on one of many fruit ships that ply the commerce route between Venezuela’s Paraguaná peninsula and Curaçao, or maybe hidden on a vessel that set sail from a yacht membership nearer to the capital, Caracas.

“All people speculating has their very own favorite … Netflix story about how she was exfiltrated,” stated Moisés Naím, a Venezuelan author and former minister.

The Wall Avenue Journal reported that Machado began her escape on Monday, sporting a wig and disguise as she fled the Caracas hideout the place she had been holed up since Maduro was accused of stealing the July 2024 presidential election from her motion. She then reportedly started a nervy, 10-hour street journey, by means of 10 navy checkpoints, in direction of the fishing village the place she took a ship in direction of Curaçao. From there, Machado took a enterprise jet to Bangor within the US state of Maine, earlier than flying on to Oslo.

Machado’s determination to flee alongside considered one of Venezuela’s most treacherous people-smuggling routes was a extremely symbolic one, which shone a lightweight on the migration disaster she has promised to finish by means of her dogged marketing campaign for political change.

Greater than 8 million Venezuelans have fled overseas since Maduro took energy in 2013 and their nation was plunged into greater than a decade of financial mayhem, hyperinflation, starvation and more and more authoritarian rule.

Throughout final yr’s election – which independently verified knowledge confirmed was received by Machado’s ally, Edmundo González – her foremost pledge was to reunite households separated by Venezuela’s collapse.

<gu-island name="YoutubeBlockComponent" priority="critical" deferuntil="visible" props="{"id":"091f0be1-03ac-4462-864c-de1c519e35bf","assetId":"p4C9LmNbRxg","index":12,"format":{"design":10,"display":0,"theme":0},"isMainMedia":false,"expired":false,"posterImage":"https://media.guim.co.uk/9a431abed0fcc66b14d1d7e880888ff216d36c5d/0_66_7049_3966/7049.jpg","duration":0,"mediaTitle":"Nobel laureate Machado attends presser in Oslo – watch live","origin":"https://www.theguardian.com","stickyVideos":false,"enableAds":true,"iconSizeOnDesktop":"large","iconSizeOnMobile":"large","hidePillOnMobile":false}"> Nobel laureate Machado attends presser in Oslo – watch dwell Carlos Lizarralde, the creator of the e-book One in 4: The Exodus that Emptied Venezuela, stated: “Fleeing by boat to a Caribbean island, María Corina Machado joined the tens of millions of Venezuelans who've escaped by sea and on foot to hunt higher fortunes – or in her case to alter the fortunes of your complete nation.”

Lizarralde believed Machado had “departed to return because the nation’s chief” because the US marketing campaign to topple Maduro with an enormous navy buildup within the Caribbean reached “a important juncture”.

“To fulfil her promise of reuniting Venezuela’s households, she first needed to comply with the trail of the exiles who went earlier than her,” added Lizarralde, who believed Machado would, for now, be higher positioned to push for democratic change from outdoors Venezuela.

Not everybody agrees. Venezuela has a protracted historical past of opposition leaders who've misplaced affect after going into exile, amongst them Leopoldo López and Juan Guaidó , the younger congressman who spearheaded the final main try to take away Maduro in 2019. A outstanding journalist from Venezuela’s state-run community Telesur referred to as the Nobel ceremony Machado’s “political funeral”.

The airplane carrying Machado arrives at Oslo airport on Wednesday. {Photograph}: Amanda Pedersen Giske/EPA Some marvel if Machado might also lose sway if she is unable to return house, though she rejected that suggestion after reaching Oslo. “I’m going to be within the place the place I’m most helpful for our trigger,” Machado informed the BBC. “Till a short while in the past, the place I believed I needed to be was Venezuela; the place I imagine I've to be immediately, on behalf of our trigger, is Oslo.”

Others are extra optimistic about Machado’s probabilities of sustaining her problem to Maduro whereas abroad, pointing to the massive common help she constructed whereas crisscrossing Venezuela by automobile, bike and boat earlier than the 2024 election.

“[Even] earlier than profitable the election, she had already turn out to be the preferred Venezuelan chief since Hugo Chávez,” stated Lizarralde, attributing that enchantment to Machado’s longstanding refusal to go away Venezuela and her vow to carry tens of millions of divided households again collectively – together with her personal.

“She turned a mom determine who had defied the chances, who had stayed, who had sacrificed, who had given up her family for the Venezuelan household,” added Lizarralde, who thought Machado would proceed to be influential, even outdoors Venezuela.

Lots of of individuals, predominantly from Venezuela, cross the Rio Grande with the intention of looking for humanitarian asylum within the US in 2023. {Photograph}: Anadolu/Getty Photographs Naím was additionally bullish about Machado’s prospects. “She’s probably the most official politician in Venezuela. She’s one of the crucial proficient politicians in Latin America, maybe the world,” he stated, predicting she would quickly return house.

“She could go on a restricted worldwide tour … to the principle capitals however then that tour ends in Venezuela, [back] in hiding,” he stated.

Talking in Oslo, Machado’s adviser David Smolansky declined to elucidate how his ally may return house however stated: “If there’s one factor María Corina has, it’s an especially excessive strategic capability.”