Machado out of hiding after 11 months to reach Oslo, credits Trump actions for having made Maduro weak

CARACAS: Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado plans to return to Venezuela whether or not President Nicolas Maduro is ousted, saying on Thursday that his government is at its weakest point because of US President Donald Trump’s “decisive” actions.Machado’s statements to reporters came hours after she appeared in public for the first time in 11 months, following her arrival in Norway’s capital, Oslo, where her daughter received the Nobel Peace Prize award on her behalf on Wednesday. “I think that the actions of President Trump have been decisive to reach where we are now, where the regime is significantly weaker,” she told reporters. “Because before, the regime thought it had impunity ….

Now they start to understand that this is serious, and that the world is watching.” She, however, sidestepped questions on whether a US military intervention is necessary to oust Maduro.She told reporters that she would return to Venezuela “when we believe the security conditions are right, and it won’t depend on whether or not the regime leaves.”Machado arrived in Oslo hours after Wednesday’s prize ceremony and made her first public appearance early Thursday, emerging from a hotel balcony and waving to an emotional crowd of supporters.

She had been in hiding since Jan 9, when she was briefly detained after joining supporters during a protest in Caracas.Machado, 58, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oct after mounting the most serious peaceful challenge in years to Maduro’s authoritarian govt.Asked whether the Venezuelan govt might have known her whereabouts, Machado said: “I don’t think they have known...” She declined to give details of her journey to Norway. But later acknowledged the US govt helped her. Flight tracking data show that the plane Machado arrived on flew to Oslo from Bangor, Maine.