Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado arrested, motorcycle convoy fired at by security after protest against Maduro

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was arrested Thursday when her motorcycle convoy was fired upon by security forces as it departed an anti-government protest in Caracas, according to aides.Machado emerged from months of hiding earlier Thursday to reappear in public as part of a last-ditch attempt to block President Nicolás Maduro from clinging to power.Machado’s press team said in a social media post that security forces “violently intercepted” the convoy as it was leaving eastern Caracas.“They wanted us to fight each other, but Venezuela is united, we are not afraid,” Machado shouted to a few hundred protesters from atop a truck in the capital moments before her arrest.There were no immediate details on her whereabouts and Maduro’s government has yet to comment.But the shock arrest spurred calls for her immediate release from across Latin America, including the President of Panama.“Will the United Nations be capable enough to take action to rescue Maria Corina Machado?,” former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said on social media.Machado, 57, is a hardliner former lawmaker who stayed and fought against Maduro even after many of her allies in the opposition leadership fled, joining an exodus of some 7 million Venezuelans who’ve abandoned their homeland in recent years.The protests called for by Machado took place a day before the ruling party-controlled National Assembly is scheduled to swear in Maduro to a third six-year term despite credible evidence that he lost the presidential election.There was a relatively small turnout for Thursday’s protests as riot police were deployed in force.

Venezuelans who’ve witnessed Maduro’s security forces round up scores of opponents and regular bystanders since the July election were reluctant to mobilize in the same numbers as they have in the past.“Of course, there’s fewer people,” said empanada vendor Miguel Contrera as National Guard soldiers carrying ri...