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Maria Corina Machado informed CBS Information Friday that being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize serves as a message to her fellow Venezuelans that “we’re not alone.”
“They’ve been a part of this enormous motion,” Machado informed CBS Information by Zoom. “We’re not alone. The world acknowledges this enormous, epic struggle.”
Machado is the chief of the pro-democracy motion in Venezuela, which is underneath a dictatorship so brutal she has been pressured to dwell in hiding.
“That is actually the largest recognition to our individuals,” Machado informed CBS Information, which was the one U.S. media outlet to talk to her following Friday’s announcement.
Generally known as Venezuela’s “Iron Woman,” the 58-year-old Machado has led a large political motion difficult the nation’s authoritarian leaders for over twenty years.
First, she challenged former President Hugo Chavez, and now, his successor, President Nicolas Maduro, whose disputed July 2024 reelection was not acknowledged by the U.S., which as an alternative declared opposition chief Edmundo González, now exiled, because the winner.
For the previous a number of months, the Trump administration has positioned stress on Maduro’s regime, deploying warships to the southern Caribbean and conducting army strikes on drug boats it says originated from Venezuela.
Final week, the White Home notified Congress that the U.S. was in a “non-international armed battle” with drug cartels it has designated as terrorist organizations.
Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for maintaining “the flame of democracy burning amidst a rising darkness,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee stated in an announcement.
A video captured the emotional second Machado accepted the award in a telephone name from Kristian Berg Harpviken, the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute.
“Oh my God. I’ve no phrases. Thanks a lot,” Machado stated on the decision. “I hope you perceive this can be a motion, that is an achievement for an entire society. I’m only one individual; I actually don’t deserve this. Oh my God.”
Machado’s defiance has come at a worth. She has spent the final yr in hiding after Maduro repeatedly threatened to arrest her.
CBS Information was with Machado in Venezuela final yr through the presidential elections, when Maduro claimed victory regardless of the worldwide outcry of fraud.
Maduro’s crackdown on dissent escalated, however that did not cease her.
“I feel it does give me a whole lot of safety,” stated Machado of how receiving the Nobel could have modified her future and her safety scenario. “However a very powerful factor, is that it highlights, worldwide, the significance of the battle of Venezuela.”
Machado informed CBS Information she spoke to President Trump Friday and thanked him “from the underside of the center of Venezuelans.”
She stated she informed Mr. Trump that he can “make certain that we’re a society dedicated to freedom, that we are going to prevail.”
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