MILES PARKS, HOST:
No one was watching Maria Corina Machado's perilous escape from her home country of Venezuela this week through a more personal lens than her children. On Wednesday, Machado's daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her mother's behalf because Machado was not able to get to the ceremony in Norway in time. Hours later, though, the Venezuelan opposition leader and her daughter reunited, and Machado greeted cheering supporters in her first public appearance since January.
For more on this week's dramatic events and on the future of Venezuela, we have with us Ana Corina Sosa. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
ANA CORINA SOSA: Thank you, Miles. It is my pleasure.
PARKS: So tell us a little bit more about this moment where you were reunited with your mother. What was that like?
SOSA: Miles, I've been thinking about that moment for the last two years, which felt like 10, to be honest, because my mother faces constant threats to her life. The risk was very real. And I had been dreaming about this moment for what seems like years until we had finally seen her. So in the backdrop, there was a Nobel Peace Prize, but for us, it was truly just a moment to embrace our mother after what felt a very long time.
PARKS: I'm curious. Was there a moment as you were growing up when you realized that your mother's work was going to both, you know, potentially change your relationship with her and also potentially put her in danger? - which is a very scary thing, I feel like, for a child to understand.
SOSA: There was one pivotal moment. I was 12 years old. This was 2004 in Caracas, and my mother was being accused of treason and terrorism. And she had to appear in front of a prosecutor, which we knew very well was controlled by the Chavista regime. And my mother, despite being advised not to present herself in front of this corrupt prosecutor, explained she was going to hand herself in.
And as a child of 12 years old at that point, that was very unsettling. And she held my hand, looked me in the eye and, with a conviction I had not witnessed before, explained she was doing this for me and for the future of my two younger brothers, Ricardo and Henrique. And she made me promise that I was going to take care of them in her absence.
I think at that point, I mean, I had tears in my eye, obviously, and all I wanted to do was beg her to be normal, to not do it, to just be my mother. But I think something inside of me just lit up and realized I had to at least tell myself that I supported her and let her know that we were going to be okay and that she should continue.
PARKS: I'm wondering if you have any sense or if you can talk a little bit more about what's going to happen in the future - on whether your mother is going to return to Venezuela, or do you have any sense of what the future of her work is?
SOSA: Yeah, I mean, I have absolutely no doubt that she's going to return to Venezuela. My mother has never broken a promise, and sometimes I wish she wasn't so stern, as a daughter, selfishly. But she has so much conviction and so much courage. But she will do it. There is absolutely no doubt. And everything she has done since as long as I can remember, every day of her life has been in favor of liberating Venezuela, and that has not changed because she's here in Oslo.
PARKS: Do you have a sense from her or in your own thoughts about whether that liberation, the free Venezuela that your mother's been working for for so many years, can come just from Venezuelans' actions?
SOSA: Venezuelans have done everything there is in our power - through civic organization, through peaceful means, through going to democratic process in terrible conditions and then proving it to the world that the will of the people demand change. We have seen and lived an economy that has collapsed by 80%. I mean, these are not just numbers. These are livelihoods. You see mothers scouting in the trash to feed their children. This has been a society that has been starved, has been humiliated, and we still stand unbroken, unshaken.
But of course we need pressure from abroad. Of course, we need an international coalition. The Venezuelan regime counts with support from the most criminal states and organizations around the world. Now, it is, of course, our wish that this happens in an orderly manner because we deserve it, and we have demanded that. And we truly believe that it will be the case.
PARKS: So it was two years since you last saw your mother. And as you talk about her - the idea of her returning to Venezuela, do you have any sense on how long it will be before you can see her again?
SOSA: Even as I allowed myself to hope, to dream, to be excited about seeing her, part of me was also dreading the moment that I knew I was going to have to part ways again, with all the risks that it implied. I hope and I really believe, Miles, that it's not going to be too long because the transition has already been set in motion. This is not a matter of if, but when. And we know Venezuela will be free really soon. It's already happening. And I really hope and believe and have faith that it'll be not long before it does.
PARKS: Can you explain that a little bit more - what you mean by that?
SOSA: Well, the Venezuelan people went to presidential elections and voted them out.
PARKS: There's so much talk right now here in the U.S. about how heavy-handed the U.S. government should be in intervening in this situation. And I guess I wonder from your perspective, is there a risk from the United States being really clearly involved in a changing of the government in Venezuela?
SOSA: Look, the rhetoric we hear now and the narrative that the regime in Venezuela likes to put out is that this is about regime change and tries to evoke this division in the American public when, in fact, the Venezuelan people have already mandated the regime change. So I urge the American people to listen to what - to us, to the Venezuelans, and not to the narrative that has been spread out by the regime and the different interest groups that support them. What the U.S. government might or might not do, I cannot comment on. And it is not up to us. It does not depend on us. And the focus should be on the struggle for our people that have been driven by us and for us.
PARKS: That's Ana Corina Sosa, the daughter of Maria Corina Machado, Venezuelan politician and activist. Thank you so much for talking with us today.
SOSA: Thank you for having me, Miles. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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