Comments
ACCORDING TO LIZ –
And the winner is…
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize for 2025 to María Corina Machado for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela.”
According to Alfred Nobel’s will, a Nobel Prize is meant to be given to those who “during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”
Not the previous 90-day horizon of Wall Street, not the engineered victory lap for the Israeli-Hamas rapprochement in the days before the Committee’s announcement. Trump, the Peace Prize-wannabe clearly has little understanding of the scope of history as perceived on the other side of the Atlantic.
As with this year’s other Nobel Prizes – in Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Literature and, today, Economics – Machado was honored for decades of work, for her ongoing commitment to the “struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
More than 20 years ago she co-founded an election-monitoring group to address concerns about the systematic undermining of Venezuela’s democratic institutions by Hugo Chávez, the socialist-turned-dictator.
Flush with petro-dollars and with strong support from the impoverished classes that had suffered under IMF economic extractive policies imposed by his predecessor, his state-controlled initiatives reduced poverty and brought the country temporary improvements in literacy, income equality and quality of life.
But his initial success faltered as the flow of oil profits declined precipitously and crime and corruption soared as Chávez turned to suppression of the press, propaganda, manipulation of electoral laws, and persecution of his critics to maintain his hold on power.
In 2005, Machado was charged with treason for supporting a recall referendum. She faced treason charges again in 2014 after participating in protests against the orchestrated rise of Nicolás Maduro following the cancer death of Chávez.
In 2024, Machado galvanized a movement that independent analysts say won last year’s election, only to have it stolen by Maduro.
As an economic conservative and former member of the national assembly, Machado rose to renown for building a coalition against authoritarian leadership in Venezuela, first of Chávez and then Maduro, that oppressed not only the wealthy business elite who had the knowledge and experience to help the country out of its economic doldrums but also the lower classes that the socialist government purported to represent.
She became the symbol of opposition to the twenty-five years of increasingly oppressive socialist rule underlying escalating crime and mounting murder rates, pervasive hunger and starvation that drove millions to flee the country on foot and by boat, and increasingly corrupt politicians profiting off criminal activities themselves, including drug trafficking.
Machado, after being blocked by the government from running for president herself, threw her support behind Edmundo González, a nonpartisan candidate, consolidating opposition to Maduro.
Even though, according to independent analysts, González won the vote by a margin of more than two to one, Maduro ignored the result and fraudulently installed himself as president for another six years. And tossed nearly 2,000 political dissidents into prison.
And impelled Machado to flee the country.
Her record of farsightedness and courage stands in sharp and shaming contrast to the credulity of the Maduro regime and its supporters.
However, during his 2020 State of the Union address, Trump called out Maduro as “an illegitimate ruler, a tyrant who brutalizes his people” concluding “But Maduro’s grip on tyranny will be smashed and broken.”
After the 2024 election, Maduro congratulated Trump calling on his adversary for a “new start” to build a relationship steeped in “respect, common sense dialogue, and understanding.” But relations between the two strongman leaders have deteriorated ever since with Trump initiating an illegal war in the Caribbean using drug trafficking abatement as a proxy.
So it should be Machado, the one who won out, that Trump should turn to despite his loss in Oslo based on the premise that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Those of us who think Donald Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for his part in ending (or at least pausing) the war in Gaza will have to wait at least a year or more.
Will have to wait until the unknowns play out. As far as DT is concerned, the war is over. But laying down arms is just the beginning.
For future consideration, there is still so much more to be done before future consideration...
If he actually does the hard work needed to control the Israelis and protect Palestinian rights. If he gets into the nitty-gritty of the conflict between peoples who both consider that land their own, solving the conundrum of how to achieve a Palestinian homeland for those who fled the Nakba while protecting those who fled the Holocaust.
If he can competently address the thorny issue of whether Hamas will disarm – or even remain, and who will govern and by what means. How to permanently resolve the flagrant actions and illegitimate occupation of the West Bank by illegal settlers and Israeli military.
What about the reconstruction of Gaza, as a homeland, not an Israeli Riviera enclave? How, and if, he will hand off Netanyahu to face genocide charges at the International Criminal Court?
There is also Trump’s ego to consider and the curiously selective timing shortly before the Committee’s decision to finally come down hard on the Israeli president.
We shouldn’t hold our breath.
Trump actively prolonged the genocide in Gaza by continuing Biden’ unquestioned backing of Netanyahu and lobbing gobs of American taxpayer-funded weaponry and technology to Israel in its effort to eradicate Hamas no matter the civilian cost.
And bunker-buster-bombed purported Iraqi nuclear sites without any authorization to make war on a foreign country.
He supported the Saudi dictatorship in its attacks on Yemen.
He and his family are still doing business with Middle Eastern regimes notorious for oppressing their own people.
More recently, Trump’s trained dogs of war have murdered Venezuelans – and a few Colombians – on the high seas in glorified battles allegedly against interdicted drugs.
And, most importantly when it convenes to consider winners in years to come, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee must consider the American Hitler’s militarization of American cities, his ongoing abrogation of Americans’ freedoms, and his systematic evisceration of democratic rights – in short, the reverse of the very reason Machado won.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
