FROM Catalonia to Iraqi Kurdistan, people are on the streets seeking self-determination and statehood for their regions. On Monday, the regional government in Iraqi Kurdistan plans to go ahead with a referendum on independence. Six days later, the regional government in Catalonia hopes to hold its referendum on secession from Spain.
At first glance, there might not seem much in common between the political situations facing Catalonia and Kurdistan but that assessment would be wrong. To begin with, like its counterpart in Madrid, Iraq’s Supreme Court ordered the suspension of the Kurdish referendum after the Iraqi parliament had declared it unconstitutional.
In both places the referenda that are due to take place present the biggest constitutional challenges in decades for Madrid and Baghdad respectively.
Read more: Video: Catalan foreign relations director calls off indyref trip to Scotland over Spanish police raids
Whether or not there is agreement with the separatist ambitions of the Catalans and Kurds, there is a great similarity in the way both peoples are facing unbridled, ominous political bullying. One could even go further and say that the repression and threats they are experiencing echo back to the darkest of times in their respective regions. In Catalonia’s case, the Madrid government’s order for police raids, the seizure of regional finances and referendum ballot papers and the arrest of local government officials harks back to the repression and abuses of General Franco’s fascist dictatorship.
In the Kurdistan region of Iraq (KRI) meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi’s threat to use military force if the planned independence referendum moves the region towards statehood must remind many Kurds of Baghdad’s punitive responses in the time of that other dictator, Saddam Hussein.
While the street protests in Spain may well turn more ugly in coming days, in the KRI the tension could boil over, plunging the Kurds in their regional capital Erbil into civil war with the Iraqi government in Baghdad.
Regular readers of this column will know that I’ve spent some considerable time of late in the KRI as the region has become the bulwark in the fight to take back Iraqi towns and cities from the jihadists of Islamic State (IS). For the best part of two years, I’ve watched as the Kurds alongside the Iraqi Army have fought to liberate towns and cities such as Mosul, Tal Afar and, as of this week, IS’s last Iraqi redoubt, Hawija.
With IS in retreat, how tragic it would be if Kurdish and Iraq forces subsequently found themselves in a disastrous military confrontation over the decision by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to go ahead with this referendum. Just as the warnings from Baghdad have mounted, so the Kurdish position has hardened, making it increasingly difficult for either side to lose face. For weeks now, key Iraqi politicians and parties have been in constant contact with neighbouring countries Turkey, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia as well as representatives of the United States, Britain, France and the UN secretary general, all of whom strongly oppose the referendum.
Read more: Video: Catalan foreign relations director calls off indyref trip to Scotland over Spanish police raids
Some Kurds are against the ballot, subscribing as they do to the wider American and British belief that it diverts attention from the job in hand: routing IS. But, to date, the response of the US and UK governments has been less than helpful. Rather than unreservedly falling in behind Baghdad and wagging fingers disparagingly at the Kurds, would it not have served diplomacy better had Washington, London and the UN worked harder to keep the Iraqi government and KRG talking? Let’s not forget that the vote itself only seeks to establish a mandate for independence at a later date.
As Hoshyar Zebari, a top Kurdish official and former Iraqi foreign minister, has pointed out: “On the road to independence, the referendum is only one step”. He is right in correcting those who mistakenly think that, by having the referendum on the Monday, the KRI will have independence on the Tuesday. Political life, as he says, is not that simple: “Building a state needs a lot of homework.”
This vote is about giving the Kurds greater leverage in negotiations with Baghdad. The Kurds have been promised so much in the past only to find themselves used or betrayed by Baghdad or the international community. Yes, they have deep grievances with Iraq’s government over control of oil, finances and disputed territories and Baghdad has these grievances with the Kurds. During my frequent visits I, like many observers, have watched those grievances grow as Kurdish peshmerga fighters have played a key role in liberating some of the disputed lands from IS.
Since negotiations with Baghdad have gone nowhere, Kurdish leaders and many ordinary people have lost patience. Those who say Monday’s vote is all about an ageing Kurdish president, Masoud Barzani, looking to his legacy and the survival of his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) are not all wrong. This, though, does not take into account the mood in the KRI. So many Kurds feel their time has come and never have they had so much political leverage over Baghdad, despite the levels of wider international opposition to their aspiring statehood.
Among many there is a sense that, after the job of dealing with IS has been done, they will once again receive little more than a pat on the back but nothing concrete in terms of political advancement on self-determination.
Kurdish officials have repeatedly stressed that they want the vote to be seen not as a provocation but as symbolic affirmation of what the great number want. But such reassurance have fallen on deaf ears in Baghdad and elsewhere and the prospect of the vote going ahead continues to send shivers of concern down the spines of those who oppose it.
This weekend I will once again be in the KRI to see how this latest political drama plays out. In the midst of all the uncertainty one thing is pretty much a given. Should the Baghdad government respond with a heavy hand then it will be a mistake. Just as in Catalonia it will only serve to stoke the fires of those seeking independence.
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