Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Prize winner María Corina Machado was injured during her departure from Venezuela. She is currently being treated in Oslo for a spinal fracture. A spokesperson for Machado confirmed this to the Norwegian newspaper on Monday Aftenpostenafter that newspaper wrote about the fracture.
The injury is said to have occurred when leaving Venezuela, where Machado was in hiding. She left the country on a small fishing boat. She was injured due to bad weather conditions at sea. It is unknown how serious the fracture is.
The secret operation to get Machado to Norway certainly captured the imagination. Disguised with a wig, she managed to pass ten checkpoints to cross to Curaçao on a fishing boat on Tuesday. Due to the same bad weather conditions that caused her spinal fracture, Machado’s boat lost GPS and she ultimately arrived too late.
A private jet was waiting in Curaçao that took Machado to Oslo after a stopover in Maine, where she arrived late on Wednesday evening. Just too late to receive her Nobel Prize herself. Her daughter did that instead. On the night from Wednesday to Thursday, Machado appeared in the public on the balcony of her hotel in Oslo.
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Machado received the Nobel Peace Prize for her commitment to democracy in Venezuela. She has been opposing the authoritarian regime of President Nicolás Maduro for years, although this has become very difficult in the country. After the death of Maduro’s predecessor, President Hugo Chávez, in 2013, Venezuela effectively became a one-party state. Maduro is trying to suppress any form of opposition with government repression, militia violence and ballot box fraud.
Unlike many previous opposition leaders, who are in exile in Europe or the United States, Machado continued the fight from Venezuela. Although she was in hiding, according to anonymous sources she is from Aftenposten still determined to return to her home country.
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Nobel Peace Prize goes to a rare brave Venezuelan who wants to let the ballot box – not bullets – do the talking
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