Nobel Peace Prize honors personal courage
On Oct. 10, the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 was awarded to Venezuela reform leader Maria Corina Machado. She is truly deserving of the honor and personifies courage, positive global influence and significance, reaching beyond that troubled nation.
Last year, she successfully galvanized and led Venezuelan opposition groups in the presidential election. Independent outside analysts agreed that the opposition won that election. Nonetheless, incumbent President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and associates stole yet another presidential election. No surprise, but there are indications their days may at last be numbered.
Ms. Machado is a conservative traditionalist, opposed to the radical socialism of the Venezuela regime in the most fundamental terms. She strongly supports the military buildup and actions in the Caribbean of the Trump administration. So far, she has carefully avoided any comment on possible U.S. military intervention in Venezuela.
Since last year, she has been in hiding. The Maduro regime since that time has been exceptionally aggressive in trying to silence dissent.
Nevertheless, Venezuela’s ongoing economic deterioration has become a major political as well as human crisis, and that reality cannot be hidden.
Sizable assets continue to provide income. Venezuela is a major oil producer, and continues to receive assistance from Cuba and Russia, though both those regimes face their own growing economic difficulties.
There is also drug trafficking, highlighted by recent U.S. attacks on Venezuela fast boats suspected of carrying narcotics.
Chaos is the principal legacy of deceased earlier socialist President Hugo Chávez. Petroleum may be a national resource, but gross mismanagement and strong international sanctions have limited the benefits.
Still, Maduro clings to power.
In early January 2019, he was sworn in for a second term following another stolen election. In response, Juan Guaidó, leader of the legislature, for a time tried to compete with the dictator. He finally fled and lives in Miami.
The Venezuela military is a major factor in the survival of the regime. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez is one of Maduro’s inner circle of cronies and a reliable mouthpiece, denouncing opposition forces. This situation could change quickly as the opposition grows.
The regional dimensions of the situation are less often discussed.
Cucuta, a town in neighboring Colombia, today shelters a quarter million Venezuelans. Approximately three million in total are in Colombia, a leader in international relief efforts, despite domestic economic challenges.
The FARC is the acronym for a once powerful insurgent communist force, known in English as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Today, they are disbanded though splinter groups are making limited gains.
The foundation of regional cooperation in Latin America is relatively strong. The Inter-American Pact for Regional Security — “Rio Pact” — was signed in Rio de Janeiro Brazil in 1947, before the NATO Treaty in 1949 and two years after the meeting of the United Nations in early 1945 in San Francisco, even before World War II concluded.
Early in the life of the United States, President James Monroe promulgated his famous Monroe Doctrine, warning European powers to stay out of Inter-American affairs. Fortunately for the new U.S. republic, Great Britain had identical interests.
The British fleet enforced the edict.
The Monroe Doctrine has proven to be durable throughout U.S. history, possibly ultimately regarding Venezuela
During the Cold War, there were real possibilities of expansion of communism from the foothold in Cuba. Today, Cuba and Venezuela governments struggle while democracy and market economies expand.
Ms. Machado represents the future.
• Arthur I. Cyr, acyr@carthage.edu, of Northbrook, teaches political economy at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He is a former vice president of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and author of “After the Cold War— American Foreign Policy, Europe and Asia.”