Oslo appearance by Nobel peace prize winner María Corina Machado cancelled

Original article by Miranda Bryant Nordic correspondent and Camille Rodríguez Montilla in Oslo

A press conference in Oslo with the Nobel peace prize laureate María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader in hiding, has been cancelled, the Norwegian Nobel Institute has said, adding that it was “in the dark” as to her whereabouts.

Machado last appeared in public on 9 January at a demonstration in Caracas protesting against the inauguration of Nicolás Maduro for his third term as president. The press conference, traditionally held by the Nobel laureate on the eve of the award ceremony, had been expected to be the 58-year-old’s first public appearance in 11 months.

It was postponed hours before it was due to start, however, and a few hours later it was cancelled.

A spokesperson for the Nobel institute said: “The press conference is cancelled for today and we have no further information about how and when she is coming.”

Asked whether it might be rescheduled for Wednesday, they said: “I don’t think so, you never know … We are also in the dark.”

The institute said in a statement: “María Corina Machado has herself stated in interviews how challenging the journey to Oslo, Norway will be. We therefore cannot at this point provide any further information about when and how she will arrive for the Nobel peace prize ceremony.”

Machado’s team did not respond to a request for comment.

Machado’s family had arrived in the Norwegian capital for Wednesday’s ceremony, but journalists accredited to attend the event received messages marked “urgent” from the committee’s head of media and communication an hour and a half before the scheduled time of access.

Machado was announced as the winner of this year’s peace prize in October for her dogged struggle to rescue Venezuela from its fate as a “brutal, authoritarian state”.

A conservative often described as Venezuela’s Iron Lady, she dedicated the prize in a post on X to “the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”

The US president has ordered a major naval buildup off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast and threatened land strikes against suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers after a more than three-month military campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.

Machado’s mother, Corina Parisca de Machado, arrived at Oslo airport on Monday. The 84-year-old has not seen her daughter in a year.

“Every day I pray the rosary, I ask God the Father, the Virgin, both together, that we may have María Corina tomorrow,” she told Agence France-Presse. “And if we don’t have her tomorrow, it is because that is God’s will.”

After the postponement of the press conference, she told the Norwegian broadcaster NRK that she was very emotional. “I am doing well, but there are a lot of emotions now,” she said.

Machado’s two sons and her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, who reportedly arrived at the Grand Hotel in Oslo on Monday night, were also due to attend.

“When we see each other, I’m sure there will be tears and joy and hugs,” Sosa told NRK earlier this month. “I miss hugging her. I miss smelling her and seeing her in person. We’re going to make the most of the time we have with each other.”

Machado’s location is not publicly known but some reports say she has made it to Europe and there are suggestions that she may have received help from the US to be smuggled out of Venezuela via Puerto Rico.

Venezuela’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab, said last month that Machado had been accused of “acts of conspiracy, incitement of hatred, terrorism” and would be considered a “fugitive” if she travelled to Norway to accept the prize.

“By being outside Venezuela and having numerous criminal investigations, she is considered a fugitive,” Saab told AFP.

Maduro refused to accept he lost to Machado’s ally Edmundo González in a presidential election in July 2024 and launched a political crackdown that forced González into exile and Machado underground.

Not since 2012, when the EU was awarded the peace prize, have so many heads of state planned to attend the ceremony. Among those expected to attend are the presidents of Argentina, Panama, Ecuador and Paraguay.

The Norwegian Nobel Institute shared a video of the moment its director, Kristian Berg Harpviken, woke Machado with the news by phone that she had been awarded the peace prize. “Oh my God!” she said. “I have no words … But I hope you understand that … I am just one person, I certainly don’t deserve this.”