Democracies must fight for freedom, Nobel laureate Machado says

By Gwladys Fouche and ‌Terje Solsvik

OSLO, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Democracies must be prepared to fight for freedom in order to survive, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado said on Wednesday, in a speech delivered ‍by her ‌daughter during a ceremony Machado could not attend.

The Venezuelan opposition leader said that the prize held profound significance, not only for her country but for the world.

"It reminds the world that ⁠democracy is essential to peace," she said via her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, whose voice cracked ‌when she spoke of her mother. "And more than anything, what we Venezuelans can offer the world is the lesson forged through this long and difficult journey: that to have a democracy, we must be willing to fight for freedom."

MACHADO COULD NOT REACH OSLO IN TIME

A large portrait of a smiling Machado hung in the Oslo City Hall to represent her. The audience cheered and clapped when Norwegian Nobel Committee head Joergen Watne Frydnes said during his speech ⁠that Machado would be coming to Oslo.

Evoking previous laureates Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa, he said fighters for democracy were expected "to pursue their aims with a moral purity their opponents never display".

"This is unrealistic. It is unfair," he said.

"No democracy operates ​in ideal circumstances. Activist leaders must confront and resolve dilemmas that we onlookers are free to ignore. People living under ‌the dictatorship often have to choose between the difficult and the impossible."

The 58-year-old engineer was ⁠due to receive the award in Oslo, in the presence of King Harald, in defiance of a decade-long travel ban imposed by authorities in her home country and after spending more than a year in hiding.

But she was unable to reach the Norwegian capital in time for the ceremony.

"I will be in Oslo, I am on my way to Oslo right now," Machado ​told Frydnes, in an audio recording released by the Norwegian Nobel Institute.

It was unclear where she was calling from.

"We don't know exactly when she will land, but sometime in the course of the night," the institute's director, Kristian Berg Harpviken, told Reuters.

'A CHOICE THAT MUST BE RENEWED EACH DAY'

"Freedom is a choice that must be renewed each day, measured by our willingness and our courage to defend it. For this reason, the cause of Venezuela transcends our borders," she said in her prepared speech.

"A people who choose freedom contribute not only to themselves, but to humanity."

In 2024, Machado was ​barred from running in ‍the presidential election, despite having won the opposition's primary by ​a landslide. She went into hiding in August 2024 after authorities expanded arrests of opposition figures following the disputed vote.

The electoral authority and top court declared President Nicolas Maduro the winner, but international observers and the opposition say its candidate handily won and the opposition has published ballot box-level tallies as evidence of its victory.

'FRAGILE' DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS

In her speech, Machado said Venezuelans did not realise in time that their country was sliding into what she described as a dictatorship.

Referring to the late president Hugo Chavez, who was elected in 1999 and held power until his death in 2013, Machado said: "By the time we recognised how fragile our institutions had become, a man who had once led a military coup to overthrow democracy, was elected president. Many thought that charisma could substitute the rule of law."

"From 1999 onward, ⁠the regime dismantled our democracy."

President Nicolas Maduro, in power since 2013, says U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to overthrow him to gain access to Venezuela's vast oil reserves and that Venezuelan citizens and armed forces will resist any such attempt.

Venezuela's armed forces are planning to mount a ​guerrilla-style resistance or sow chaos in the event of a U.S. air or ground attack, according to sources with knowledge of the efforts and planning documents seen by Reuters.

DEDICATED TO TRUMP

When Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, she dedicated it in part to Trump, who has said he himself deserved the honour.

She has aligned herself with hawks close to Trump who argue that Maduro has links to criminal gangs that pose a direct threat to U.S. national security, despite doubts raised by the U.S. intelligence community.

The Trump administration ‌has ordered more than 20 military strikes in recent months against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and off Latin America's Pacific coast.

Human rights groups, some Democrats and several Latin American countries have condemned the attacks as unlawful extrajudicial killings of civilians.

(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, Terje Solsvik, Miguel Pereira, Tom Little and Leonhard Foeger in Oslo and Ilze Filks in Stockholm; Editing by Alison Williams and Alex Richardson)