OSLO, Norway — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado appeared in public for the first time in 11 months Thursday after a daring escape from her homeland when she emerged from a hotel balcony in Norway’s capital and waved to an emotional crowd of supporters cheering for the new Nobel laureate.
Her appearance in Oslo came hours after her daughter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize award on her behalf. Machado was recognized after mounting the most serious peaceful challenge in years to the authoritarian government of Venezuelan President President Nicolás Maduro.
“Freedom! Freedom!” the crowd gathered outside the hotel chanted after seeing Machado. Together, they sang Venezuela’s national anthem.
Machado, dressed in jeans and a puffer jacket, spent several minutes outside the hotel, where she was joined by members of her family and several of her closest aides. She hugged many in the crowd amid chants of “President! President!”
“I want you all back in Venezuela,” Machado said as people lifted their cellphones to take pictures.
Hiding in Venezuela
Machado had been in hiding since Jan. 9, when she was briefly detained after joining supporters in a protest in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. She had been expected to attend the award ceremony Wednesday in Oslo, where heads of state and her family were among those waiting to see her.
Machado said in an audio recording of a phone call published on the Nobel website that she wouldn’t be able to arrive in time for the ceremony but that many people had “risked their lives” for her to arrive in Oslo.
Her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the prize in her place.
“She wants to live in a free Venezuela, and she will never give up on that purpose,” Sosa said. “That is why we all know, and I know, that she will be back in Venezuela very soon.”
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee, told the award ceremony that “María Corina Machado has done everything in her power to be able to attend the ceremony here today — a journey in a situation of extreme danger.”
Machado said in an audio recording of a phone call published on the Nobel website that she would not be able to arrive in time for the ceremony but that many people had “risked their lives” for her to arrive in Oslo.
“I am very grateful to them, and this is a measure of what this recognition means to the Venezuelan people,” she said, before indicating that she was about to board a plane.
Flight tracking data show that the plane she arrived on flew to Oslo from Bangor, Maine.
Machado said that “since this is a prize for all Venezuelans, I believe that it will be received by them. And as soon as I arrive, I will be able to embrace all my family and my children that I’ve have not seen for two years and so many Venezuelans, Norwegians that I know that share our struggle and our fight.”
Show of solidarity
Prominent Latin American figures attended Wednesday in a signal of solidarity with Machado, including Argentine President Javier Milei, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino and Paraguayan President Santiago Peña.
The 58-year-old Machado’s win for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in her South American nation was announced on Oct. 10. Watne Frydnes said that “Venezuela has evolved into a brutal authoritarian state,” and he described Machado as “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in recent Latin American history.”
Machado won an opposition primary election and intended to challenge Maduro in last year’s presidential election, but the government barred her from running for office. Retired diplomat Edmundo González took her place.
The lead-up to the election on July 28, 2024, saw widespread repression, including disqualifications, arrests and human rights violations. That increased after the country’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, declared the incumbent the winner.
González, who sought asylum in Spain last year after a Venezuelan court issued a warrant for his arrest, attended Wednesday’s ceremony.
U.N. human rights officials and many independent rights groups have expressed concerns about the situation in Venezuela, and called for Maduro to be held accountable for the crackdown on dissent.
‘Fight for freedom’
“More than anything, what we Venezuelans can offer the world is the lesson forged through this long and difficult journey — that to have democracy, we must be willing to fight for freedom,” Sosa said as she delivered the lecture written for the occasion by her mother.
The speech didn’t refer to the current tensions between Washington and Caracas, as U.S. President Donald Trump continues a military operation in the Caribbean that has killed Venezuelans in international waters and threatens to strike Venezuela. Machado has consistently endorsed Trump’s strategy toward Venezuela.
Among many “heroes of this journey” honored in the lecture, Sosa mentioned “the leaders around the world who joined us and defended our cause,” but didn’t elaborate.
Watne Frydnes said of authoritarian leaders like Maduro that “your power is not permanent. Your violence will not prevail over people who rise and resist.”
“Mr. Maduro, accept the election result and step down,” he said.
Past winners unable to attend
Five past Nobel Peace Prize laureates were detained or imprisoned at the time of the award, according to the prize’s official website, most recently Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi in 2023 and Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski in 2022.
The others were Liu Xiaobo of China in 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar in 1991 and Carl von Ossietzky of Germany in 1935.
Gustavo Tovar-Arroyo, a Venezuelan human rights activist who was forced to flee into exile in 2012, said that Machado’s supporters “did the best for her to be here as she deserves. But we knew the risk.”
He added that they are “disappointed that she cannot be in the ceremony, but this is part of what we do when we fight against a dictatorship, a tyranny or a criminal regime. So we are used to it.”
