Saab issued the threat in remarks given to AFP and recalled that the socialist regime accuses Machado, who remains in hiding at an undisclosed location in Venezuela,” of dubious “acts of conspiracy, incitement to hatred, terrorism.”
“Being outside Venezuela and facing numerous criminal investigations, she is considered a fugitive,” Saab said. The implication of “fugitive” status is that Venezuela would fight to arrest and/or extradite Machado if she attempts to attend the Nobel ceremony in her honor.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced last week that Machado is slated to travel to Oslo to receive the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. The committee awarded Machado with the peace prize in October in recognition of her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
At press time, it remains publicly unclear how Machado intends to travel to Norway. The regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro imposed a full travel ban on her in 2014 and indicted her on dubious “instigation” charges for having supported the February 2014 wave of anti-regime protests known as La Salida (“The Exit”) that sought to oust Maduro and bring an end to the Venezuelan socialist regime. The Maduro regime’s brutal repression of La Salida left at least 40 dead.
At the time, the Maduro regime also accused Machado of allegedly participating in a dubious “plot” to assassinate Maduro himself. The Maduro regime imposed the ban on Machado weeks after she held an international tour and spoke at the Organization of American States (OAS) denouncing the actions of the rogue socialist regime.
At press time, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa and Panamanian President José Raul Mulino have both confirmed that they will accompany Machado to Norway. According to Bloomberg, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said in a text message that the organization is “very aware that it’s a dangerous journey for her,” and that they are “working on the assumption that she will be able to go back and continue her important work in Venezuela.”
Saab stressed to AFP on Thursday that the Maduro regime is also investigating Machado for allegedly “calling to invade Venezuela,” referring to her support of ongoing U.S. military actions against drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea. Maduro has repeatedly claimed alongside members of his regime that the United States’s drug-fighting actions are a pretext to stage an “invasion” of Venezuela, oust Maduro from power, and “steal” Venezuela’s oil and other natural resources.
The Maduro regime official further detailed that “more than 100 mercenaries” are being prosecuted by his office on purported links to CIA plots against Maduro.
“There are dozens of mercenaries of more than 30 nationalities, all of whom are linked to the CIA,” Saab claimed.
In September 2024, the Maduro regime-controlled Public Prosecutor’s Office issued arrest warrants for Machado and elderly diplomat Edmundo González, the only opposition candidate who Maduro allowed to run in the July 2024 sham presidential election. The socialist regime charged both with a barrage of dubious election-related charges such as “disobedience,” “conspiracy,” “usurpation of functions,” and “sabotage.” After Attorney General Saab ratified the arrest warrant against Machado, she accused him of being “an arm of persecution and state terrorism.”
While Maduro claims he “won” the election, neither he nor any official in his rogue socialist regime presented voter tallies that could corroborate the dictator’s claims. The Venezuelan opposition presented tallies collected on the day of the election that demonstrated González defeated Maduro in a landslide. González fled to Spain in September and in January as the Maduro regime imposed a $100,000 bounty on him.
This week, Machado published the “Freedom Manifesto,” a four-page document containing principles for Venezuela in a prospective post-Maduro regime and post-socialism era. The text represents the first genuinely conservative and non-socialist governance proposal for Venezuela after nearly 27 years of both the socialist regime and the mainstream “opposition,” whose members are largely socialist or centrist – and include active members of the Socialist International.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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