María Corina Machado appears in Oslo after Nobel Peace Prize win

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who has been in hiding for months, told the BBC she knew “exactly the risks” she was taking by traveling to Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Machado appeared in Oslo in the middle of the night, waving from a hotel balcony. This was the first time she had appeared in public since January.

The 58-year-old made the secret trip despite a travel ban and the Venezuelan government’s threat that she would be classified as a fugitive.

In an emotional moment, Machado waved to his supporters who gathered outside the Grand Hotel in the Norwegian capital, sent them kisses and sang with them.

To their delight, she then came out and received them personally, climbing over the security barriers to approach them.

“Maria!” “Maria!” They shouted as they raised their phones high to record the historic moment.

Earlier on Wednesday, she welcomed her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa. She accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of her mother.

The Nobel Institute awarded the prize to Machado this year “for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy” in Venezuela.

As of Wednesday evening, the mother of three had not seen her children in nearly two years, having sent them away from Venezuela for their safety.

In an interview with the BBC’s Lucy Hawkings after her appearance in the balcony, Machado said she had missed the graduation parties and weddings of her daughter and one of her sons.

“For over 16 months, I have not been able to hug or touch anyone,” she said. “Suddenly, in just a few hours, I was able to see the people I love most, touch them, cry and pray together.”

During the interview with the BBC, Machado had several rosary beads hanging around her neck, which she said were given to her by supporters outside the hotel.

There has been a lot of speculation about whether she will be able to safely return to Venezuela.

“Of course I will come back,” she told the BBC. “I know exactly the risks I’m taking.”

“I will be where I am most helpful to our cause,” she continued. “Until recently, the place I thought I should be was Venezuela, and the place I think I should be today, on behalf of our cause, is Oslo.”

Machado is one of the most respected voices in the Venezuelan opposition, and has long condemned President Nicolas Maduro’s government as “criminal” and called on Venezuelans to unite to overthrow it.

She was banned from running in last year’s presidential elections, in which he won a third six-year term. The vote has been widely rejected internationally as neither free nor fair, and many countries consider its rule illegitimate.

She told the BBC: “We need to treat this regime not as a traditional dictatorship, but as a criminal structure.”

Machado accused his regime of receiving funding from criminal activities such as drugs and human trafficking, and repeated calls for the international community to help Venezuela “cut off those flows” of criminal resources.

Maduro has always strongly denied his ties to gangs.

When asked whether she would support a US military strike on Venezuelan territory, she replied Washington’s recent attacks on alleged drug shipsMachado did not respond directly, but accused Maduro of “giving up our sovereignty to criminal organizations.”

She added: “We did not want war, nor were we looking for it… Maduro was the one who declared war on the Venezuelan people.”

Machado says she and her team are ready to form a government in Venezuela, and that she offered to sit with Maduro’s team to reach a peaceful transition, but they “rejected it.”

The BBC asked Jørgen Watne Frednes, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, who sat with Machado during the interview, whether a potential violent seizure of power to oust Nicolás Maduro would conflict with her peace prize.

He said the burden of peace should fall on the current Venezuelan government: “The power lies with the Maduro regime, and they have a responsibility to make sure that this is a peaceful transition.”

Even after she was banned from running in the elections last year, Machado continued to campaign for the candidate who replaced her on the ballot, Edmundo Gonzalez.

Maduro was declared the winner, although polling station statistics showed that Gonzalez won by a landslide.

Maduro’s government has repeatedly threatened Machado with arrest, accused her of calling for a foreign invasion and called her a terrorist for protesting the election results.

The Venezuelan prosecutor said last month Machado will be considered a fugitive if she travels to Norway To accept her award, she said that she was accused of “acts of conspiracy and incitement to hatred and terrorism.”

It made her journey to Norway difficult and dangerous.

Details of the trip were kept secret, and even the Nobel Institute did not know where she was or whether she would be in Oslo in time for the award ceremony.

the Wall Street Journal Reports say that in order to escape Venezuela, Machado donned a disguise, managed to pass through 10 military checkpoints without being arrested, and sailed away on a wooden boat from a coastal fishing village.

The newspaper, citing a person close to the operation, reported that the plan took two months to prepare, and was aided by a Venezuelan network that helps people flee the country. The report says the United States is also involved, but it is unclear to what extent.

Machado did not deny these details to the BBC, but he did not provide details about the trip.

“they [the Venezuelan government] “They say I am a terrorist and should stay in prison for the rest of my life and they are looking for me,” she said. “So leaving Venezuela today, in these circumstances, is very dangerous.”

“I just want to say today that I am here because many men and women risked their lives for me to arrive in Oslo.”

Frednes described her trip to Norway as a “highly dangerous situation.”

Sitting next to her during the interview with the BBC, he said that it was an “emotional” moment for him.

“In the middle of the night, to be here, it’s unbelievable,” he said. “It is difficult to describe what this means to the Nobel Committee and to all of us.”

After being announced as a Peace Prize winner in October, Machado pointed to praise US President Donald Trump, who has been vocal about his own Peace Prize ambitions and is locked in ongoing military tension with Venezuela.

Wednesday, It was announced that the US military seized an oil tanker off the coast of VenezuelaThis is a sharp escalation in the pressure campaign exerted by Washington against the Maduro government.

The Trump administration claims the ship was subject to sanctions and was involved in an “illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations.”

The Venezuelan government accused the United States of theft and piracy.