Arya News - From Madrid to Lima, and Buenos Aires to Brisbane, supporters celebrate the opposition leader’s Nobel Peace prize win.
Supporters of Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado have rallied in countries around the world to celebrate her Nobel Peace Prize win ahead of Wednesday’s award ceremony
Thousands of people marched through Madrid, Utrecht, Buenos Aires, Lima, Brisbane and other cities on Saturday in support of 58-year-old Machado, who won the Nobel award for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in Venezuela.
The crowd in Peru’s capital, Lima, carried portraits of Machado and demanded a “Free Venezuela”. With the country’s yellow, blue and red flag draped over their backs or emblazoned on their caps, demonstrators clutched posters that read, “The Nobel Prize is from Venezuela.”
Veronica Duran, a 41-year-old Venezuelan who has lived in Lima for eight years, said Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize is celebrated because “it represents all Venezuelans, the fallen and the political prisoners in their fight to recover democracy”.
Machado, who has been in hiding since August 2024, wants to use the attention gained by the award to highlight Venezuela ‘s democratic aspirations.
Her organisation said it expected demonstrations in more than 80 cities around the world.
In Colombia, a group of Venezuelans gathered in the capital, Bogota, wearing white T-shirts and carrying balloons as part of a religious ceremony in which supporters asked that the Nobel Peace Prize “be a symbol of hope” for the Venezuelan people.
Meanwhile, in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires, some 500 people gathered on the steps of the law school at the country’s largest university, improvising a torchlit march with their mobile phones.
“We Venezuelans in the world have a smile today, because we celebrate the Nobel Prize of María Corina and of the entire Venezuelan diaspora, and of all the brave people within Venezuela who have sacrificed themselves… we have so many martyrs, heroes of the resistance,” said Nancy Hoyer, a 60-year-old supporter.
The gatherings come at a critical point in the country’s protracted crisis as the administration of United States President Donald Trump builds up a massive military deployment in the Caribbean, threatening repeatedly to strike Venezuelan soil.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s has branded the US operation an effort to end his hold on power.
The Trump administration has said it does not recognise Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, as Venezuela’s legitimate president.
Maduro claimed a re-election victory last year in a national ballot that the US and other Western governments dismissed as a sham, and which independent observers said the opposition won overwhelmingly.
Machado had won the opposition’s primary election and intended to run against Maduro, but the government barred her from running for office. Retired diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez, who had never run for office before, took her place.
The lead-up to the July 28, 2024, election saw widespread repression, including disqualifications, arrests and human rights violations. It all increased after the country’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, declared him the winner despite credible evidence to the contrary.
Gonzalez sought asylum in Spain last year after a Venezuelan court issued a warrant for his arrest.
Meanwhile, Machado went into hiding and has not been seen in public since January 9, when she was briefly detained after joining supporters in what ended up being an underwhelming protest in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital.
The following day, Maduro was sworn in for a third six-year term.
“We are living through times where our composure, our conviction and our organisation are being tested,” Machado said in a video message shared on Tuesday on social media.
“Times when our country needs even more dedication, because now, all these years of struggle, the dignity of the Venezuelan people, have been recognised with the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Machado won the award on October 10 for keeping “the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness”.
According to the head of the Nobel Institute, Machado has promised to go to Norway to pick up her prize on Wednesday.
“I was in contact with Machado last night [Friday], and she confirms that she will be in Oslo for the ceremony,” Kristian Berg Harpviken told the AFP news agency.
“Given the security situation, we cannot say more about the date or how she will arrive,” he said.