The Death of the Nobel Peace Prize

Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado marks the culmination of a long process of moral and political decline that has left an indelible mark on the award. It will continue to be awarded year after year, but it will forever be tarnished by its ethical incoherence and political opportunism at the service of Washington.

Of course, what has happened in recent days is nothing new. The prize was discredited long ago. However, on a few occasions, it had been awarded to people whose careers were clearly aligned with peace: Martin Luther King Jr. (1964), Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1979), Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (1980), South African bishop Desmond Tutu (1984), and Nelson Mandela (1993). However, awarding the prize to Henry Kissinger in 1973 irrevocably tarnished Alfred Nobel’s original idea of honoring those who strive for peace and the peaceful resolution of conflicts. A serial killer, Kissinger was responsible for the brutal bombing of Vietnam and the destabilization of democratic processes, such as in Salvador Allende’s Chile.

The same could be said of Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, oddly awarded just a few months after he took office, “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” according to the official text. Unfortunately, the facts contradicted the Nobel Committee’s assessment: during his eight years in office, Obama never ceased to wage wars and conduct military operations abroad. He authorized 563 attacks, primarily drone strikes, to eliminate “terrorist targets” in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. This figure is all the more striking when compared with the mere 57 attacks ordered during George W. Bush’s administration, despite his launching the so-called “war on terror.” Estimates of civilian casualties in those countries range from 384 to 807, the vast majority of which occurred while Obama held the Nobel Peace Prize.

The award to María Corina Machado adds another somber note to this tally. She has long been a fervent advocate of violence, a stance she has maintained without pause since Hugo Chávez Frías was elected in December 1998, under the Fourth Republic’s framework. From the outset of Chávez’s presidency, Machado and other figures tied to the old, corrupt politics of the Fourth Republic were involved in conspiracy. Their plans culminated on April 11, 2002, in a coup that failed to end Chávez’s life by a miracle.

The coup plotters drafted a text with the grand title “Constitution of the Government of Democratic Transition and National Unity,” establishing a de facto government led by Pedro Carmona, head of the powerful Fedecámaras [Chamber of Business and Commerce]. This self-proclaimed champion of democratic governance was exemplary only for its brevity. True to form, Carmona did not waste time—an area in which progressive governments have historically excelled—as his first official action was to dissolve the National Assembly, the Supreme Court and the National Electoral Council, remove the Attorney General, the Comptroller of the Republic and the Ombudsman, dismiss all governors, mayors and councilors, decree the removal of all ambassadors, consuls and vice-consuls, abolish the 49 enabling laws and the new constitution, and restore Venezuela’s old name by ending the Bolivarian Republic designation.

All of these attacks on Venezuela’s democratic institutions were endorsed by a call to the country’s “living forces,” which met at the Miraflores Palace and signed a document detailing the aforementioned measures to support the new regime. Among the signatories was María Corina Machado.

Was that her sole youthful misstep? No, this was merely the opening chapter in a career increasingly marked by appeals to violence. She traveled to Washington to meet with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office on May 31, 2005, seeking support to overthrow Venezuela’s constitutional government. In other words, she proposed an American military intervention that would have resulted in a bloodbath in her homeland. She continued along this path and, in March 2014, during the first of the deadly “guarimbas”—riots by armed lumpens and paramilitaries—organized by the Venezuelan right to topple the government, Machado reappeared on the international stage as a Panama “alternate ambassador” (yes, Panama, not Venezuela) at the Organization of American States (OAS)’s Permanent Council session. All this while she was a member of Venezuela’s National Assembly. She urged the OAS Permanent Council to authorize a multinational military intervention against Venezuela to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, an act of vile treachery against her own country.

In 2017, the “guarimbas” resurfaced with the full backing of Venezuela’s right wing and its US sponsors. Meanwhile, María Corina Machado, now the Nobel Peace Prize recipient, offered no condemnation of the crimes against the people. Quite the contrary. Over the years, she has repeatedly urged foreign intervention to overthrow the Bolivarian government while consistently dismissing any criticism of the “guarimberos,” who blocked streets and intersections to create the illusion of a nationwide civic strike aimed at forcing the government to fall. People who dared to venture out of their homes during these riots, if they were not killed, were met with fierce attacks. They even burned people alive for merely being identified as Chavista. There is extensive documentation of these crimes, as well as of Machado’s complicit silence.

It should not be forgotten that this self-styled Venezuelan “patriot” leader spent many years urging the governments of the United States and the European Union to impose harsh economic sanctions and a wide range of other measures against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. She was also investigated for conspiracy after an NGO she founded and directed received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a program financed by the US Congress, for campaigns aimed at destabilizing the Bolivarian government.

María Corina Machado embodies fascist violence. In most countries, she would face severe legal action for advocating the invasion of Venezuela by a foreign power and for supporting unilateral coercive measures that bring about enormous sacrifices on her fellow citizens. Her violent frenzy and her bootlicking towards the imperial master have resulted in her resounding silence regarding the ongoing, horrifying genocide in Gaza. Then there is her silence about the risks posed to the Venezuelan people by the deployment of US naval forces to the southern Caribbean and the possible aggression that would ensue. Unsurprisingly, she dedicated her Nobel Prize to Donald Trump, while all Western media mercenary outlets have lauded her as a champion of peace, human rights and democracy.

Such abundant praise for Machado is unsurprising: after all, it comes from the same media outlets and rulers who, for two years, turned a blind eye, endorsed, funded, and offered diplomatic cover for the Israeli government to carry out the barbaric genocide of Gazans. With a few exceptions, reading the Western press is nauseating due to the lies, double standards and systematic concealment of countless crimes. This is why the Western bloc, in frank and irreversible decline, applauds the Nobel Prize awarded to María Corina Machado. Upon hearing the news, Richard Grenell, the White House special envoy, offered only a brief remark: “The Nobel Prize died years ago.” He was right, but one final nail was still needed to seal the coffin. María Corina Machado provided it.

Atilio Borón is a political scientist, sociologist, author, and intellectual. In 2012, he received the Liberator Award for Critical Thinking.

Translated by Venezuelanalysis. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

Source:Página 12