RUTHFULLY YOURS

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was kidnapped by her country’s dictatorship today as she left a political rally in the Chacao neighborhood of Caracas. It was the first time she had come out of hiding since Nicolás Maduro stole elections in the country last year.

In a conversation with National Review on January 3 — among Machado’s last media interviews prior to the kidnapping today — she told me that she was in a “safe place.” While other opposition politicians had sought asylum abroad, she stayed in Venezuela, biding her time until she could launch a new wave of demonstrations today.

The article I wrote about our conversation focused on her remarks about the demonstrations she launched today to coincide with the inauguration of Maduro pursuant to last July’s sham election and her relationship with the incoming Trump administration. But other comments she made in our conversation speak to her immense bravery, especially in light of the regime’s attack on her today,

Right off the bat, I had asked Machado about the fact that she had gone into hiding after the election, from which Maduro disqualified her, almost certainly because of her immense popularity (and his unpopularity). I asked if she was safe.

“I’m sure you’re aware of what happened at the end of July and just after the election. The regime unleashed a brutal wave of oppression against ordinary citizens just because they were involved in monitoring the election, but also against everyone else that was involved and had a responsibility in organizing the process,” she said.

Machado continued, noting that because of the crackdown, the other leading figures in her organization were either forced to leave and seek asylum abroad or hide in Venezuela. It has been brutal,” she told me. “I have been accused of terrorism. Maduro said I should be put in jail for life.” And they said they would “search for me and find me and, well, else.”

“So yes, I’m currently in a, I hope, safe place, as [are] most of our leaders around the country,” she concluded. I asked if Maduro’s forces knew where she was, and she answered that she didn’t believe so.

Today, she voluntarily came out of hiding. As she left a demonstration where she had spoken to a crowd of several hundred people who turned out despite the presence of Maduro’s security forces, the regime’s thugs “violently intercepted” her convoy.

That Machado, a longtime opposition politician laboring to free her people from a brutal dictator, is brave might sound like an obvious observation. But in the coming weeks, it needs to be stressed many times over. As she noted in the interview, Maduro struggles to cling to even the most tendentious claim to legitimacy following the July election; her organization published voting tallies that prove he lost in a landslide, even in areas that previously saw major support for the regime.

He thus sought to delegitimize her efforts, claiming in October that Machado had fled the country. That was yet another lie, one intended to crush the morale of Venezuelans and to make Machado look weak. But she proved him wrong today, putting her courage on full display — and her personal safety at significant risk.