A Florida-based U.S. special operations veteran who helped to get María Corina Machado from Venezuela to Norway was concerned about her plans to return.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate -- who Nicolás Maduro wants behind bars -- arrived at Oslo to meet with supporters in and out of events.
Machado, 58, spoke publicly in Oslo. She promised to take the Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuela and to return to continue her fight for change.
“The entire Venezuelan intelligence service, the entire Cuban intelligence service, parts of the Russian intelligence, were all looking for her for months, and specifically this week," Bryan Stern, of the Tampa-based Grey Bull Rescue Foundation, told CNN on Friday, adding that he was also “deeply concerned about being targeted by the U.S. military” in the Caribbean.
After a perilous journey, Machado made her first public appearance since Jan. 9 in Caracas, from the balcony of the Grand Hotel in Oslo. Supporters lined up outside. She walked out of the hotel, jumped barriers, and hugged and talked to them before going back inside.
Machado later attended official Nobel Prize events, met with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, and talked to reporters and supporters with hopeful enthusiasm.
“We will turn a country into a beacon of hope and opportunity, of Democracy, and while we will welcome not only the Venezuelans that have been forced to flee, but citizens from all over the world that will find a refuge as Venezuela used to be,” Machado told reporters on Friday in Oslo.
Machado said that once she is back in Venezuela, since Maduro is in power, she will remain in hiding.
“I will be with my people, and they will not know where I am,” Machado told reporters. “We have ways to do that and take care of us.”
Stern told CNN that he was deeply concerned about Machado’s safety.
“When we were on the boat together, we talked about this, and I begged her not to go back. She’s a real hero and icon of mine, and to put her back in harm’s way where she may be arrested, killed, tortured, who knows what? I would really not want to do that, but like us, she’s a leader, and she wants to be there for her people,” Stern said.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy interdicted The Skipper, an oil tanker that the Justice Department alleged was violating U.S. Treasury sanctions by transporting oil from Venezuela to Iran.
“I think that the actions of President Trump have been decisive to reach where we are now, where the regime is significantly weaker,” Machado told reporters in Oslo. “Because before, the regime thought it had impunity.”
Local 10 News Correspondent Cody Weddle contributed to this report from Oslo, Norway.
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