The escape began on Monday, in the Caracas suburb where María Corina Machado has been hiding for the past year.
The plan: To travel to the other side of the Atlantic, to Oslo, to receive the award she has been awarded for her fight against Venezuela's authoritarian rule under Nicolás Maduro.
The four miles to the coast took ten hours, writes The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Along the way, Machado – wearing a wig and disguise – and her party passed through ten military checkpoints.
At dawn the next day, the next leg began: a journey of more than fifty kilometers in a fishing boat across the Caribbean Sea to the Dutch island of Curaçao. Strong winds and high waves slowed the journey, the newspaper's source says. It was only after ten hours at sea that they reached the island.
The Trump administration knew
The nerve-wracking escape had been planned for months, with the help of a network that helps people flee Venezuela. According to the WSJ, the US government was on board with the plans, in part to ensure the fishing boat was not attacked by the US fighter jets that have been attacking alleged drug traffickers along the Venezuelan coast in recent months.
In Curaçao, Machado was met by a private contractor specializing in getting people out of hard-to-reach places, reportedly with American assistance. On Wednesday, as the Nobel guests began to gather in Oslo, a private jet took off from the Caribbean island with its sights set on the Norwegian capital.
María Corina Machado landed just before midnight on Wednesday, barely half a day after her daughter received the Nobel Peace Prize on her way.
"There are many Venezuelans who have risked their lives for me to come here. It is very, very difficult and very dangerous to leave Venezuela if you are persecuted by the regime," the laureate said.
Will return
In Caracas, the Maduro regime mocked Machado's late arrival and accused the opposition of trying to plunder Venezuela.
The extremist, fascist lackeys who have called for blockades, invasions and bombings of Venezuela will be defeated again, in the same way that their cheap show in Norway fell apart, raged Vice President Delcy Rodríguez.
Machado's plan now is to rest, then travel around Europe to mobilize support. The plans also include a visit to Washington, DC, according to the WSJ's source close to the peace laureate.
Then she will return home – despite threats of arrest and imprisonment.
In democracy surveys, Venezuela is ranked among the “rogue states” – the country is classified as one of the most authoritarian and unfree states in the world. Democratic freedoms and rights have been eroded for two decades, but the decline has been particularly large in recent years.
During the “Bolivarian Revolution”, which began when Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999, restrictions have been gradually introduced on political rights and democratic functions.
Since President Nicolás Maduro came to power in 2013, the country has descended into a multifaceted crisis that has led to deep misery for a large part of the population.
Elections held since 2015 have lacked democratic legitimacy. In January 2025, Maduro was sworn in for a third six-year term as president. The opposition rejected the results, which were also rejected by much of the world.
Source: Country Guide/UI
