More than one thirty countries have joined the ‘March for peace and freedom’, which is celebrated this Saturday in honor of the award that the opposition leader Maria Corina Machado will receive in Oslo on December 10. In cities like Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Utrecht or Zurich Hundreds of Venezuelans have gathered under the motto ‘Nobel is Ours’.
The rallies, organized by Vente Venezuela, the opposition leader’s party, seek to amplify, in Machado’s words, the “democratic struggle, citizen organization and the ability to stand firm in the face of oppression”before the award ceremony, which Machado will attend in person next Wednesday, as confirmed this Saturday by the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, Kristian Berg Harpviken.
In Barcelonanails 200 personas They have marched to the monument to Simón Bolívar, in the Parc de la Barceloneta, and have claimed against the government of Nicolás Maduro and the repression, and in support of the opposition leader. Also in Madrid, hundreds of protesters have mobilized carrying banners with messages such as “The Nobel Prize lights the path to freedom” or “The Nobel Prize belongs to 30 million Venezuelans who want peace and freedom.”
The demonstration has been called in a total of 121 cities spread across 31 countries, among them France, Italy, Germany, Ecuador, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Panama. However, the organization has indicated that there will be no marches in Venezuelan cities to avoid repression.
A gap in the opposition
Machado will receive the Nobel Peace Prize at a time of growing tension in the southern Caribbean and in the relationships between Nicolás Maduro and Donald Trump. To date, The United States has sunk 21 boats and killed 83 of their occupants in the operation dubbed Operation Southern Spear, which Washington considers part of its fight against drug trafficking. Added to these attacks is the threat of a possible ground offensive, which Trump referred to last Tuesday.
The leader of Vente Venezuela has unreservedly supported the Republican president’s offensiveand has even supported calling the Miraflores Palace a “narcoterrorist” organization. However, the position regarding Washington’s operations has opened a schism within anti-Maturism, with sectors that maintain a cautious silence on the matter or prefer a negotiated solution.
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