Venezuelan opposition leader to miss Nobel Peace Prize ceremony

Venezue­lan op­po­si­tion leader María Co­ri­na Macha­do will miss the cer­e­mo­ny to award her the No­bel Peace Prize in Oslo on Wednes­day, the head of the Nor­we­gian No­bel In­sti­tute said.

Macha­do last ap­peared in pub­lic 11 months ago. No­bel In­sti­tute di­rec­tor Kris­t­ian Berg Harpviken told pub­lic broad­cast­er NRK the Venezue­lan op­po­si­tion leader’s daugh­ter will ac­cept the prize on Macha­do’s be­half. He lat­er told the broad­cast­er that Macha­do was ex­pect­ed in Oslo dur­ing the day — but “un­for­tu­nate­ly, she won’t ar­rive in time to at­tend to­day’s cer­e­mo­ny or oth­er events.”

“We con­firm that she will not at­tend the No­bel cer­e­mo­ny, but we are op­ti­mistic about her pres­ence on the rest of the day’s agen­da,” said Macha­do’s spokesper­son, Clau­dia Macero. She did not give in­for­ma­tion on Macha­do’s cur­rent lo­ca­tion.

Promi­nent Latin Amer­i­can fig­ures planned to at­tend Wednes­day’s cer­e­mo­ny in a sig­nal of sol­i­dar­i­ty with Macha­do, in­clud­ing Ar­gen­tine Pres­i­dent Javier Milei, Ecuador’s Pres­i­dent Daniel Noboa, Pana­ma’s Pres­i­dent José Raúl Muli­no and Paraguayan Pres­i­dent San­ti­a­go Peña.

Macha­do has been liv­ing in hid­ing and has not been seen in pub­lic since Jan. 9, when she was briefly de­tained af­ter join­ing sup­port­ers in a protest in Cara­cas, Venezuela’s cap­i­tal.

The 58-year-old’s win for her strug­gle to achieve a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion in her South Amer­i­can na­tion was an­nounced on Oct. 10, and she was de­scribed as a woman “who keeps the flame of democ­ra­cy burn­ing amid a grow­ing dark­ness.”

Macha­do won an op­po­si­tion pri­ma­ry elec­tion and in­tend­ed to chal­lenge Pres­i­dent Nicolás 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 Ju­ly 28, 2024, elec­tion 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 sought asy­lum in Spain last year af­ter a Venezue­lan court is­sued a war­rant for his ar­rest.

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.

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.

“There is a long tra­di­tion that when a Peace Prize lau­re­ate can­not be present, close fam­i­ly mem­bers rep­re­sent them,” Harpviken said. “That hap­pened with Narges Mo­ham­ma­di, and with Ales Biali­ats­ki; both were im­pris­oned at the time. And the same will hap­pen with Maria Co­ri­na Macha­do to­day. The daugh­ter will de­liv­er the state­ment her moth­er has writ­ten.”

Gus­ta­vo To­var-Ar­royo, a Venezue­lan hu­man rights ac­tivist who was him­self forced to flee in­to ex­ile in 2012, said 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.”

By DAVID KEY­TON

OSLO, Nor­way (AP)