Venezuela’s opposition leader calls for global movement to ‘rescue’ country

María Corina Machado says she will not go into exile despite Nicolás Maduro’s crackdown on his opponents and critics. Photograph: Pedro Rances Mattey/AFP/Getty Images

The Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, has called for a global movement, similar to the international campaign against apartheid in South Africa, to help rescue her country from Nicolás Maduro’s “criminal tyranny”.

Speaking to foreign journalists as Maduro stepped up his post-election crackdown, Machado said she hoped Venezuela’s struggle for democracy would become “a world cause” just as South Africa’s did in the 60s, 70s and 80s.