Venezuela closes embassy in Oslo after Nobel Peace Prize award

Three days after awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to prominent opposition politician María Corina Machado from Venezuela, the government in Caracas closed its embassy in Oslo. “Despite our differences on several issues, Norway wants to maintain dialogue with Venezuela and will continue to work towards it,” a spokeswoman for the Norwegian Foreign Ministry told AFP on Monday. The decision was “regrettable”.

The Venezuelan government had previously announced the closure of the embassy, ​​citing a restructuring of its diplomatic service. Caracas also closed its embassy in Australia and opened new diplomatic missions in Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso.

Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro indirectly called Machado a witch on Sunday. “90 percent of the entire population rejects the demonic witch ‘La Sayona,'” Maduro claimed. He usually avoids calling Machado by name and refers to her, among other things, as “La Sayona” – a reference to a ghost figure from a well-known Venezuelan legend. “We want peace – and we will have peace. But a peace with freedom, with sovereignty, with independence, with dignity and with equality,” Maduro said.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Machado the prestigious prize on Friday. According to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, the Nobel Prize is independent of the government in Oslo.

Machado is celebrated by her followers as “La Libertadora,” the “liberator.” Although she is threatened with arrest in her homeland and numerous opposition members are in prison, she has not left the country but has gone into hiding. She appears unannounced, gives a speech in the back of a van and then flees on a motorcycle.

The opposition chose Machado as its presidential candidate last year. She was considered the favorite against the left-wing nationalist incumbent Nicolás Maduro – until the authorities banned her from running. The little-known diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia ran in her place, and Machado became his spokeswoman.