When the Nobel Committee announced María Corina Machado as the 2025 Peace Prize laureate, Western leaders hailed her as a “symbol of democracy and hope.” Yet for millions of Venezuelans struggling under crippling shortages, the award rings hollow- a reminder that in the modern world, peace is too often defined by who you stand with, not whom you stand for.
Because behind Machado’s global applause lies a silent cruelty: Venezuela’s greatest human suffering today stems not from war, but from sanctions.
Sanctions: The Invisible Siege
Over the last decade, sweeping sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union, and their allies have strangled Venezuela’s economy. These measures, originally justified as “pressure for democracy,” have gone far beyond the political elite they were meant to punish.
They have: Crippled oil exports, Venezuela’s lifeline industry. Blocked access to financial systems and medical imports. Collapsed public revenues, crushing healthcare, transport, and wages.
According to UN humanitarian agencies and even U.S.-based economists, these sanctions have contributed to mass poverty, medicine shortages, and the exodus of millions.
In other words, the “instruments of peace” used by the so-called democratic world have inflicted a form of economic warfare upon ordinary Venezuelans.
The Foreign Embrace of Machado
Machado’s rise has been amplified precisely by the same Western institutions that designed and justified those sanctions.
From Washington to Brussels, she is celebrated as “the democratic alternative.” Western media portray her as the lone voice of liberty. Yet her politics- unyieldingly pro-Western, pro-market, and anti-dialogue- align perfectly with the geopolitical aim of regime change.
Machado supports maintaining sanctions until Maduro is gone. She has denounced negotiations as “appeasement.” And she has openly courted the endorsement of foreign governments whose economic choke-hold has deepened her nation’s misery.
So the question becomes unavoidable: Can a leader who echoes the architects of her people’s suffering truly be called “people-friendly”?
The Peace Paradox
The Nobel Peace Prize claims to honor non-violent struggle. But how can non-violence coexist with economic violence imposed from abroad?
Sanctions kill quietly- not with bullets, but with hunger and hospital shortages. They corrode dignity, devastate livelihoods, and drive families into exile.
To award a Peace Prize within such a context- to a figure who refuses dialogue and walks in lockstep with the sanctioning powers- transforms peace into a political statement, not a humanitarian one.
It tells the world that peace is only valid when it serves Western interests, even if it starves the very people it claims to liberate.
Dialogue as Duty, Not Defeat
In any polarized nation, dialogue is not surrender, it is statesmanship. Venezuela’s crisis cannot be resolved by symbolic defiance or foreign endorsement; it requires national reconciliation, pragmatic negotiation, and gradual restoration of trust.
By rejecting all dialogue, Machado turns peace into an ultimatum: her way or no way. This is not democracy- it is moral absolutism, powered by external validation.
True democratic leadership does not wait for applause from Washington or Oslo. It listens, it compromises, it speaks to the hungry before it speaks to the powerful.
The West’s Convenient Morality
The Western narrative surrounding Venezuela follows a familiar script- condemn the regime, promote opposition figures, impose sanctions, and call the suffering “collateral.”
It is the same moral framework that punished Iraq and Iran in the name of democracy, leaving societies broken but regimes intact. In this script, leaders like Machado are not measured by what they do for their people, but by how well they align with Western political comfort zones.
Thus, when the Nobel Committee celebrates her, it is not honoring Venezuelan peace — it is endorsing a geopolitical strategy.
The Real Victim: The Venezuelan Citizen
Between the state’s grip and the opposition’s external loyalties, the ordinary Venezuelan stands abandoned. They have endured the hypocrisy of sanctions, justified by “peace” and “democracy.”
Peace, to them, is not an abstract ideal. It means food that’s available, hospitals that work, fuel that’s affordable, and borders open for trade- not exile.
Until that peace returns, every foreign speech about “freedom” is just another form of arrogance.
The Moral Inversion of the Nobel
If the Nobel Peace Prize is meant to reward those who lessen human suffering, this year’s decision feels inverted.
It celebrates a leader whose politics are woven into the same foreign apparatus that deepened Venezuela’s pain.
Instead of honoring those who bridge divides, the Committee has chosen someone who thrives on them.
Instead of recognizing peace-builders, it has elevated a political symbol engineered for foreign consumption.
A Final Reflection: The People’s Peace
Peace in Venezuela will not arrive through sanctions or symbolism. It will not be delivered by speeches from Oslo or declarations from Washington. It will be built, painfully and imperfectly, by Venezuelans themselves- through compromise, reconstruction, and the courage to talk.
Until that day, peace prizes can decorate the walls of elites, but the true peace will remain unawarded- buried under sanctions, waiting for dialogue.
