The boastful bravado of the Nicolas Maduro/Delcy Rodriguez political duopoly, mirroring the audacious and nefarious plots of the Venezuelan ruling elite, has been dented by the decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Their gloating responses that Guyana lost because the Court did not reject or alter the questions to be posed in the referendum, as Guyana asked the Court to do, is the faux triumphant noises of the defeated.
The ICJ rebuffed Venezuela on Friday by ruling that “pending a final decision in the case, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela shall refrain from taking any action which would modify the situation that currently prevails in the territory in dispute, whereby the Co-operative Republic of Guyana administers and exercises control over that area.” In other words, the ICJ decided that Venezuela must do nothing that would ‘modify the situation that currently prevails’ over Essequibo, which Guyana administers and over which it exercises control. This stops Venezuela in its Bolivarian tracks from invading Guyana or from issuing passports or ID cards to the residents of Essequibo, as it had clearly planned to do.