Venezuelan Nobel laureate backs US seizure of oil tanker | María Corina Machado

Venezuela’s best-known opposition leader, Nobel peace laureate María Corina Machado, said she supported the US seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela and said it was a “very necessary step” to confront Nicolás Maduro’s “criminal” regime.

Speaking in Oslo on Thursday, a day after he was honored for his “tireless” fight for democratic change, Machado praised the raid on the ship by a US Navy and Coast Guard helicopter.

Venezuela’s vast oil wealth, which has the world’s largest proven reserves, is not being used by the Maduro dictatorship to fund hospitals, feed poor teachers or improve security, Machado said. Rather, his regime used it to purchase weapons used to suppress his opponents. “So yes, these criminals need to be stopped, and cutting off the sources of illegal activities is a very necessary step,” Machado told reporters.

Earlier in the day, Machado said his arrival in Oslo was a “historic turning point” that showed Venezuelans “the world is with them.”

Forced by Maduro to hide in Venezuela, Machado fled his authoritarian homeland by boat to go to Norway to collect his reward.

He said Thursday that Venezuelan authorities “would have done everything they could” to stop him if they knew where he was hiding.

Speaking at the Storting, Norway’s parliament, just hours after he dramatically took to the stage to greet supporters from the balcony of Oslo’s Grand hotel and an emotional reunion with his family, Machado thanked “those who risked their lives so that I could be here today.”

Standing next to the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, the woman said: “I don’t think the authorities know where I am. It’s clear they will do everything they can to prevent me from coming here.” He added: “I want to thank everyone who risked their lives so I could be here today.

“At this hour, I say to all citizens of the world and I assure you that I am very hopeful that Venezuela will be free and that we will transform the country into a beacon of hope, opportunity and democracy.”

Machado, who had not seen his children for about two years before coming to Oslo, said that “the first moment I saw my children” I could not sleep because I was deciding what to do.

“For weeks, I was thinking about the possibility of which one to hug first… I hugged all three of them at the same time. It was one of the most extraordinary spiritual moments of my life and it happened in Oslo, so I am very grateful to this city. It is something I will never forget.”

Stating that she is one of millions of mothers “dying to embrace our children,” she added: “This brings us together.”

Machado said he wants to visit many countries while in Europe, but plans to return to Venezuela, where he will remain in hiding. “When I return, the regime will not know where I am. We have men who will take care of me and the places where I stay,” he said.

Hours earlier, the politician and pro-democracy activist celebrated his arrival in Oslo by stepping onto the Grand’s balcony just before 2.30am local time.

Dozens of fans shouted “Brave!” shouted slogans. and “Freedom!” He appeared in front of the hotel and sang the Venezuelan national anthem. “Glory to the brave nation who has thrown off the yoke!” they shouted.

This was Machado’s first public appearance in almost a year after the July 2024 presidential election, in which Maduro was accused of theft.

Moments after appearing on the balcony outside the hotel’s famed Nobel suite, the 58-year-old conservative took to the street and climbed over metal barricades to embrace supporters gathered outside the 19th-century building’s glittering façade.

He told a press conference later on Thursday: “Peace is a declaration of love. And that’s what brought me here.”

When asked whether he supported US military intervention in Venezuela, he said the country was already occupied. “We have Iranian agents and terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas operating alongside the regime.” He said drug cartels have turned Venezuela into a crime hotspot.

Machado, who does not have a passport, said in an interview with Norwegian broadcaster NRK at 4 a.m. that he had been traveling for about two days. “It is very, very difficult and very dangerous to leave Venezuela if you are persecuted by the regime,” he said.

He said being reunited with his family was “very emotional.” “I haven’t seen my children for almost two years. My mother also had to leave, so I haven’t seen her for 16 months. Not my husband, not my sisters, not my friends, not my colleagues.”

Hours earlier, on Wednesday, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, the Nobel laureate’s 34-year-old daughter, accepted the Nobel peace prize on behalf of her mother after she was unable to arrive in Oslo in time for the ceremony.

Speaking at that event, Norwegian Nobel committee chairman Jørgen Watne Frydnes called on Maduro, who lost last year’s presidential election to Machado’s ally Edmundo González, to resign. Frydnes praised Machado’s “struggle to ensure a peaceful and just transition from dictatorship to democracy” in Venezuela and said, “Let a new era begin.”

Several Nobel laureates, including Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, Burmese politician and activist Aung San Suu Kyi, and Polish trade unionist and future president Lech Wałęsa, were unable to collect their awards in Oslo due to the political situation in their home countries.

Members of the Maduro regime condemned Machado’s award, and vice president Delcy Rodríguez called the Nobel ceremony a “complete failure” whose rival was unable to attend. Rodríguez claimed that the 2025 Nobel prize was “tainted with blood”, adding: “They say you are afraid.”

Speaking at a rally in Caracas, Maduro called on the Trump administration, which has spent recent months trying to overthrow his government, to end its “illegal and brutal interventionism.” He said citizens should be ready to “break the teeth of the North American empire if necessary.”

If Trump succeeds in removing Maduro from power, Machado appears in a position to lead Venezuela. But Maduro’s fall is far from certain; He foiled the US president’s 2019 “maximum pressure” campaign to oust him with a combination of sanctions and threats. Some observers doubt the Venezuelan dictator will survive Trump’s latest intervention.