这正如她的风格，是一场充满象征意义的回归。10月25日，反对派领袖玛丽亚·科里娜·马查多在流亡近十个月后，首批现身委内瑞拉境内的画面显示，她在巴基西梅托市附近一座教堂内的神龛前，被支持者簇拥在“神圣牧羊女”雕像旁。该神龛描绘的是身为牧羊女引领羊群的圣母玛利亚。在她现身前不久，马查多在X平台发布了一条隐晦的信息：“我在这里。和你们所有人在一起。”
IT WAS, AS is her style, a homecoming laden with symbolism. When the first images of the opposition leader María Corina Machado emerged from inside Venezuela after a near ten-month exile on October 25th, they showed her surrounded by supporters next to the statue of the Divina Pastora. The shrine, inside a church near the western city of Barquisimeto, depicts the Virgin Mary as a shepherdess guiding her flock. Shortly before she appeared Ms Machado had posted a cryptic message on X: “I am here. With you all.”
她这场戏剧性的回归让数百万委内瑞拉人——或许还有该国的执政当局——措手不及。几个月来，这位极受欢迎的政治家一直承诺“很快”回委内瑞拉。她曾在国内隐居到12月，随后秘密出国前往奥斯陆领取诺贝尔和平奖。近几个月她曾多次试图返回，主要通过商业和私人航班。每次当局都设法挫败了她的计划。这一次，似乎是她悄悄从哥伦比亚经陆路边境入境。她从美国政府获得了何种帮助尚不清楚。据报道，她身边有一支美国私人安保团队。
Her theatrical return caught millions of Venezuelans—and possibly the country’s ruling regime—by surprise. For months the wildly popular politician had been promising to come back “soon” to Venezuela. She had lived there in hiding until December, when she left the country clandestinely to collect the Nobel peace prize in Oslo. In recent months she had made several attempts to go back, mostly via commercial and private aircraft. On each occasion the regime had managed to foil her plans. This time it appears she quietly crossed the land border from Colombia. What help she received from the United States government is unclear. She is reported to be accompanied by an American private security team.
无论她如何设法返回，她在委内瑞拉的出现似乎注定会使特朗普政府与德尔西·罗德里格斯这个声名狼藉的政权之间形成的不同寻常、亲密关系变得复杂。自1月3日美军抓捕了她的前任老板尼古拉斯·马杜罗，并将他及其妻子西利亚·弗洛雷斯带往纽约面对贩毒指控以来，后者一直在掌管该国。
However she managed to get back, her presence in Venezuela looks set to complicate the unusual, cosy relationship the administration of President Trump has formed with the disreputable regime of Delcy Rodríguez. The latter has been running the country since January 3rd, when United States troops captured her ex-boss, Nicolás Maduro, and whisked him and his wife, Cilia Flores, to face charges of drug trafficking in New York.
当被问及马查多回国一事时，特朗普周日声称对此不知情。“她是一位非常好的女性，”他说，“她把诺贝尔奖奖章给了我，我还能说什么呢？”今年1月，马查多因在委内瑞拉为民主运动所做的努力而获得诺贝尔奖，她将奖章交给了特朗普（后者声称自己更配得上该奖）。当时她说，这一举动是为了感谢他对“我们事业的坚定支持”。
Mr Trump claimed not to know about Ms Machado’s return when he was asked about it on Sunday. “She is a very nice woman,” he said. “She gave me her Nobel Prize, so how can I say anything else?”In January Ms Machado handed the Nobel medal, which she won for her campaign for democracy in Venezuela, to Mr Trump (who claimed he deserved it more). She said at the time she made the gesture in gratitude for his “decisive support of our cause”.
此后，她有理由怀疑这种支持的程度。虽然特朗普从不吝啬对罗德里格斯的赞美——他称她为“了不起”——但他长期以来对马查多的态度似乎一直模棱两可，而马查多在委内瑞拉人中要受欢迎得多。
She has since had reason to doubt the extent of that support. While Mr Trump never hesitates to praise Ms Rodríguez—whom he calls “terrific”—he has long appeared ambivalent towards Ms Machado, who is far more popular among Venezuelans.
这位前国会议员出身于一个曾经富有的实业家家庭，她在2024年组织了反对派的竞选活动。当她本人被禁止竞选总统时，她推举了一位替身候选人、年迈的前大使埃德蒙多·冈萨雷斯。冈萨雷斯以压倒性优势赢得了选举。但他从未就职，因为马杜罗在其整个随行团伙（包括罗德里格斯）的默许下宣布了虚假结果。随后几周，政治镇压开始恶性升级，迫使冈萨雷斯流亡国外，马查多被迫躲藏，数百名反对派活动人士入狱。
A former congresswoman from a once wealthy industrialist family, she organised the opposition election campaign in 2024. When banned from standing for the presidency herself, she put forward a stand-in, an elderly former ambassador, Edmundo González. Mr González won the vote by a landslide. He never took office because Mr Maduro, with the connivance of his entire entourage (including Ms Rodríguez) declared a fake result. In the weeks that followed, a vicious tightening of political repression began, forcing Mr González into exile, Ms Machado into hiding, and hundreds of opposition activists into jail.
马查多呼吁在明年7月前在委内瑞拉举行新的选举，并明确表示她将把自己的名字列入候选人名单。这一提议尚未获得特朗普的支持。“我认为他们还没准备好[举行选举]，”他在9月表示。
Ms Machado has called for new elections in Venezuela to be held by next July, and has made it clear she will be putting her name forward as a candidate. This proposal has not yet received Mr Trump’s backing. “I don’t think they’re ready [for elections] yet,” he said in September.
他的重点却在于将抓捕马杜罗先生以及随后在委内瑞拉发生的一切描绘成毫无瑕疵的成功。他将其宣传为让美国完全控制了委内瑞拉巨大的已探明石油资源。他的政府在8月通过与委内瑞拉及一家私营石油公司达成的协议，获得了该国650亿桶石油的“多数控制权”，约占其已探明储量的五分之一。他声称委内瑞拉人正“在街头跳舞庆祝”他所取得的一切成就。
His focus instead has been on portraying the capture of Mr Maduro, and what has followed in Venezuela, as an unmitigated success. He spins it as giving America total control of Venezuela’s vast proved oil resources. His government in August secured “majority control” of 65bn barrels of the country’s oil, about a fifth of its proven reserves, in an agreement with Venezuela and a private oil company. He claims that Venezuelans are “dancing in the streets” in celebration of all he has achieved.
特朗普先生的问题，也是马查多女士的机遇，在于这并非事实。很少有委内瑞拉人认为他扶持罗德里格斯女士（她广受憎恶），或他们自身的经济状况，有任何像成功的样子。特朗普先生本人在委内瑞拉的支持率在最近几个月大幅下滑。“他除掉了马杜罗，这很好，但这里基本上还是同一套烂摊子，”首都加拉加斯的一名电脑技术员爱德华多说。
Mr Trump’s problem, and Ms Machado’s opportunity, is that this is not true. Few Venezuelans view his propping up of Ms Rodríguez (who is widely loathed), or their own economic situation, as anything like success. Mr Trump’s own popularity in Venezuela has slumped in recent months. “He got rid of Maduro, which is good, but it is basically the same shit here,” said Eduardo, a computer technician in Caracas, the capital.
在马查多女士身在国外期间，美国支持由另一位反对派领导人迪诺拉·菲格拉主导的初步过渡谈判。政权一方的谈判由国民议会议长豪尔赫·罗德里格斯领导，他是罗德里格斯女士的兄弟。谈判于上周结束，双方同意就司法和法律改革举行更多会谈。今年以来已有1000多名政治犯获释。仍有300多名政治犯关押在狱中。10月22日，菲格拉女士前往总统府与罗德里格斯女士进行首次公开会晤，释放了和解信号。
While Ms Machado has been outside the country, the United States has backed tentative transition talks led by another opposition leader, Dinorah Figuera. The regime’s side of these negotiations has been led by the head of the national assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, Ms Rodríguez’s brother. Discussions concluded last week with agreements for more talks on judicial and legal reforms. More than 1,000 political prisoners have been released this year. Over 300 more remain locked up. On October 22nd Ms Figuera went to the presidential palace for her first public meeting with Ms Rodríguez, a signal of reconciliation.
“让马查多女士能够安全返回委内瑞拉的条件，是美国支持的和解谈判的直接成果，该谈判已使数百名政治犯获释，并让数百名流亡在外的政治反对派人士回国，”美国国务卿马可·鲁比奥于10月25日表示。当晚，马查多女士正在与一支支持者车队一道前往首都。“很快我就会和你们在一起，”2024年大选获胜者冈萨雷斯发帖称。委内瑞拉民众很可能很快就会走上街头欢庆——但不是跳特朗普的曲子。■
“The conditions allowing for the safe return of Ms Machado to Venezuela is the direct result of the US supported reconciliation talks which has already seen hundreds of political prisoners freed and hundreds of political opposition figures return from exile,” said the American secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on October 25th. That same evening, Ms Machado was on her way, with a caravan of supporters, to the capital. “Very soon I will be with you,” posted Mr González, the winner of the 2024 election. Venezuelans may well soon be dancing in the streets—but not to Mr Trump’s tune. ■