Venezuela opposition claims elusive leader briefly detained
CARACAS—Venezuela prodemocracy figurehead Maria Corina Machado was briefly detained by security forces Thursday after emerging from months of hiding to lead a protest in Caracas, defiantly promising after her release that her country “will be FREE!”
The 57-year-old engineer-turned-dissident appeared from among a throng of thousands of opposition supporters in the capital, climbing atop a pickup truck amid a massive police deployment.
The protests were aimed at veteran leader Nicolas Maduro, due to be sworn in for a third six-year term on Friday despite a disputed election.
He wishes to extend a quarter century of repressive military-backed rule that began with his larger-than-life mentor Hugo Chavez.
“We are not afraid!” Machado told the rapt crowd, which turned out in smaller numbers than expected amid widespread fears of another bloody government crackdown.
“From today we are in a new phase. Venezuela is free,” she insisted, before donning a dark jacket, an ink-black helmet and jumping on the back of a motorbike that spirited her away.
Unclear
What exactly happened next remains unclear. Supporters said that after leaving the rally Machado was “violently” apprehended and “taken away by force” by security agents.
For almost an hour her team said little.
Later they said she was knocked from the motorbike, “shots were fired” and she was “forced to record several videos” during a brief detention.
In a message on X later, she thanked those who had come out in protest, and expressed sympathy for a Venezuelan she said was injured by a bullet “when I was detained by the regime’s repressive forces.”
“I am now in a safe place and with more determination than ever to continue by your side UNTIL THE END!” she added.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello called the opposition’s account “a lie,” and said that “if there were a decision to detain her, she would be detained.”
“She’s crazy,” he said.
‘Playing with fire’
Machado’s brief disappearance caused outcry among opposition supporters and much of the international community.
Exiled opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who many believe to be the actual winner of July’s flawed election, warned the security forces not to “play with fire.”
Nations from Ecuador to Spain condemned Machado’s reported detention and even US president-elect Donald Trump weighed in.
“Venezuelan democracy activist Maria Corina Machado and President-elect Gonzalez are peacefully expressing the voices and the WILL of the Venezuelan people,” Trump said on his platform Truth Social.
“These freedom fighters should not be harmed, and MUST stay SAFE and ALIVE!” he said, echoing his first term policy of “maximum pressure” against the authorities in Caracas.
