Arizona Tribune - Machado urges pressure so Maduro understands 'he has to go'

In the interview with CBS News talk show "Face the Nation," Machado -- who left Venezuela in a risky escape and was awarded the top prize in Oslo this week -- was asked about the possibility of US military intervention in her country.

"I will welcome more and more pressure so that Maduro understands that he has to go, that his time is over," Machado said.

President Donald Trump's administration has been piling pressure on Venezuela for months with a major naval buildup in the region that has been accompanied by strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats that have killed close to 90 people.

While she said she wasn't aware of any potential US plans, she 58-year-old opposition leader stressed that a Maduro removal should not be considered typical.

"I will insist something that I've said several times before, this is not conventional regime change," she explained.

"We had an election. Regime change was already mandated by over 70 percent of the population, and what we need is support to enforce that decision."

Leftist Maduro began a third six-year term after a presidential election last year, which the opposition claims to have won.

Machado was barred from standing and went into hiding after the vote.

Her escape from Venezuela this week reads like a spy thriller.

The operation to extract one of the country's most recognizable figures from Caracas and whisk her to Oslo for the prize ceremony was code-named Golden Dynamite after Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite who founded the awards.

The politician donned a wig before setting out from her Caracas hideout for a beach in northern Venezuela, from where she boarded a fishing boat to rendezvous on the high seas with her rescuer, US Army veteran Bryan Stern.

En route to the coast she slipped undetected through 10 military checkpoints, according to Stern.

But her odyssey was strewn with setbacks.

Her boat, deliberately chosen for its poor state of repair to avoid being mistaken by US forces for one of the "go-fast" drug boats it has targeted in airstrikes, broke down, delaying her departure for several hours.

Rough seas provided mixed blessings on her voyage, making the vessel less visible to eyes in the sky but causing the boat's GPS to fall overboard, leaving her adrift for two hours, according to witness accounts gathered by the Wall Street Journal, CBS, BBC and AFP.

"There were moments when I felt that there was a real risk to my life," Machado told reporters in Oslo, where she arrived early Thursday by private jet from the Caribbean island of Curacao.

In the CBS interview, she would not discuss the details of her breakout.

"I am not going to give more information regarding my trip to Norway. But what am I going to say how important it is for the Venezuelan people," she said.

"This is a recognition to a nation that has fought tirelessly, courageously against a criminal, narcoterrorist structure."

She added: "I came to receive that prize, that award, and I'm going to bring it back home to the Venezuelan people as soon as possible."

The full CBS interview will be released Sunday.

H.Romero--AT