How Machado’s Return to Venezuela Got Derailed

“Maria Corina Machado was on her way home,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“A private jet took off from Virginia on Friday last week to carry her to the Caribbean island of Curaçao, where the Venezuelan opposition leader planned to launch a trip back to her country for the first time since she fled in secret in December, said people familiar with the matter. Twin earthquakes had just devastated Venezuela’s coast, causing thousands of casualties. This was the moment, she believed, to return from exile.”

“But about an hour into the flight, the dispatcher of the jet’s charter company abruptly told the pilots to turn the Hawker 800 around over North Carolina and return to the Washington area.”