By: Ricardo Abud
Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado constitutes a historic and ethical blunder. This recognition not only contradicts the fundamental spirit of the award, but also represents a direct insult to those who have truly dedicated their lives to reconciliation, justice, and the genuine defense of peoples.
There are awards that dignify those who receive them, and others that discredit them. In this case, the Nobel Peace Prize doesn't honor Machado's name: what it does is offend common sense, insult the memory of peoples suffering from war, and trivialize the meaning of the word peace.
The central question lies in the profound contradiction between the award-winning figure and the concept it seeks to honor. What peace are we talking about when we honor a figure who has called for foreign intervention in his own country? What reconciliation are we talking about when we celebrate someone who promoted economic sanctions that only brought hunger, scarcity, and pain to millions of Venezuelans?
María Corina Machado is not presented as a defender of peace, but as an activist for conflict. Her discourse doesn't seek to unite, but to fracture; she doesn't build bridges, but digs chasms. In the most difficult moments of national life, she didn't call for dialogue or collective construction, but rather for confrontation, international pressure, and even the unusual idea of a "liberating" invasion.
The inconsistency is compounded by the comparison: Can an award honoring Nelson Mandela or Rigoberta Menchú now be placed on the shoulders of someone who has celebrated sanctions that froze resources, destroyed jobs, and exacerbated Venezuelan migration? It raises questions about what kind of peace can be built on the ruin of one's own compatriots.
The Nobel Peace Prize cannot become a political trophy, nor a propaganda tool for external interests. If peace means justice, respect, and sovereignty, this award is the negation of them. Rewarding someone who called for sanctions against their country is equivalent to rewarding the pain of others; it is equivalent to declaring that destabilization can also be an achievement.
Even more serious is the accusation that Machado has publicly applauded the deportations of Venezuelans from the United States, many of them victims of the very policies she promoted. The Nobel Peace Prize should be a recognition of empathy, understanding, and the ability to heal nations. With this decision, however, it becomes a parody of itself. Awarding it rewards intolerance, division, and submission to foreign interests.
Venezuela, it is argued, needs leaders who heal, not poison; who embrace, not point fingers; who defend sovereignty, not surrender it. And, above all, it needs the world to stop rewarding hypocrisy in the name of peace.
Talking about peace implies talking about construction, dialogue, respect for sovereignty, and the pursuit of understanding. However, Machado's figure is associated, through his own public statements, with the exact opposite: calls for foreign intervention, the promotion of sanctions that have directly affected the Venezuelan people, and a narrative that has fostered division and confrontation among compatriots.
You can't reward peace when you've advocated for economic warfare. The sanctions she celebrated didn't affect political elites: they hit the most vulnerable, those who lost their jobs, their access to medicine, their stability. Rewarding those who encouraged these measures is like awarding a medal to ruin. It's recognizing as a "struggle for peace" what was, in reality, a crusade of pressure and destabilization.
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado falls into the category of cringe-inducing ironies. It's as if peace were being celebrated by honoring someone who has called for sanctions, blockades, and even "humanitarian interventions" that have little to do with humanity. The award says nothing about Venezuela, but it speaks volumes about the state of moral confusion among those who grant it. This award does not represent a triumph for peace, but rather the defeat of judgment and a profound moral confusion within the committee that awards it.
Ultimately, if peace becomes empty talk, the prize loses its moral value and is degraded into a mere propaganda tool, making the award say more about the state of confusion of those who grant it than about the real situation in Venezuela.
THERE IS NOTHING MORE EXCLUSIVE THAN BEING POOR.
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