Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader recently expelled from the country's National Assembly, has today spoken before the Brazilian Senate. Ms. Machado has condemned her country's government, calling Nicolás Maduro's actions "brutal repression" and a his government a "regime without scruples." She stated that "when a society closes institutional roads and criminalizes its citizens, the people have two options: either they falter or they take to the streets and fight for freedom," she told Brazilian senators.
Maria Corina Machado was invited by the Commission of Foreign Affairs of the Brazilian Senate to discuss the crisis that has overtaken her country -- the Venezuelan opposition leader asked that Brazil "not close its eyes" in the face of oppression and that "Venezuelan people are suffering in the streets." Machado also denounced the "illegality" of her removal from the National Assembly following her representation of Panama at the Organization of American States on the 20th of March in Washington D.C.
Machado insisted that she had come to Brazil "more of a Representative than ever, "insisting that "the people and only the people" can triumph. Machado justified the protests that began nearly two months ago as a response to the critical economic situation in Venezuela, rising insecurity, the lack of basic products and the suppression of free speech. She urged Brazilian senators to "find solidarity with the Venezuelan people" and stressed that the conflict is between "the lack of respect for human rights and freedoms, between dictatorship and democracy, between justice and tyranny, between an oppressive regime and a people crying for freedom."
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