Asharq Alawsat (The Middle east)
 Friday


Kurdish Referendum: What is the Lowdown?

 by Amir Tahiri

Despite many efforts to stop or postpone it, the Iraqi Kurdistan
referendum has become a fait accompli and must be taken into account
in shaping future developments, and Masoud Barzani, the man who
orchestrated the exercise, must be as pleased as Punch.

In contemplating the future, it is important to know exactly what we
are talking about. Supporters of the referendum have pinned their flag
to two concepts: independence and self-determination.

They say Iraqi Kurds want independence. However, like all other
Iraqis, Iraqi Kurds already live in a country that is recognized as
independent and a full-member of the United Nations.

The concept of the quest for independence applies to lands that are
part of a foreign empire or turned into "possession" of a colonial
power. Legally speaking, at least since 1932, that has not been the
case in Iraq. If, Iraq isn't independent, then we must assume that Kak
Masoud, rather than being a prominent leader contributing to the
development of Iraq's new but fragile democratic process, is a satrap
for an unknown empire or an agent for a mysterious colonial power. But
Kak Masoud isn't a satrap precisely because his country, Iraq, is
independent.

Then we come to the concept of self-determination which is recognized
as a right under international law. It was first developed in the wake
of the First World War and the beak up of the Ottoman and the
Austro-Hungarian Empires. The idea was that people in the component
parts of those empires should determine their own future, especially
by deciding whether or not to form states of their own. The Wilson
Doctrine and the so-called Briand-Kellogg Pact (between France and the
US) further refined the concept.

Later, in the wake of the Second World War the concept was used to
provide a legal framework for decolonization as British, French and
Dutch Empires broke up. In the past 100 years, thanks to the concept
of self-determination, over 120 new independent countries have
appeared on the global map.

Self-determination was established as the right of all peoples to
choose their own governments and pass their own laws rather than be
subject to distant foreign rulers and lawmakers.

Seen in that light, Iraqi Kurds already enjoy self-determination
because they choose their own local and national governments and
lawmakers.

The first thing to understand is that the recent referendum was about
independence and self-determination is bogus, to say the least. Used
to hoodwink public opinion could lead to dangerous complications in
the future.

So, what was the referendum really about? It was about secession which
is not the same thing as self-determination or independence. Its
organizers want to detach the areas where Kurds form a majority and
set up a new separate state.

However, while self-determination is universally recognized as a
right, secession is not.

Secession is an option, not a right. At best, it could be regarded as
a desire and, at worst, a folly.

But seeking secession, though unlawful in both national and
international law, isn't a crime. Also, it has little to do with the
degree of democratic development of societies. The United Kingdom is a
well-established democracy but still faces secessionism on the part of
large number of Scots. There are secessionists in several other
democracies: the Quebecois in Canada, the Corsicans in France, the
Basques and the Catalans in Spain, the Frisians in Denmark, the
Kashmiris in India and even Porto Allergens in Brazil.

The important thing is that in all those cases, parties that support
secession say so openly, seldom trying to disguise their ambition as a
quest for self-determination and independence.

So, the first thing that Kak Massoud should do is to stop doing
taiqyeh, call a spade a spade, and openly admit that what he is
seeking is secession.

He should say that his aim is to break up Iraq, which is a
multi-ethnic republic, in order to create a mono-ethnic Kurdish state.
Interestingly, the word Iraq, which means "lowland", is a geographic
term with no ethnic connotations. Iraqi citizenship is a civic
concept, transcending ethnic, religious and racial identities.

Many countries in the world are named after their majority ethnic
component. In our region Turkey is the land of the Turks and Armenia
the land of Armenians. All the "stan" countries refer to ethnic
majorities there. Beyond the Middle East, all but 12 of the European
states are also named after ethnic components: Germany is the land of
Germans and Russia the land of Russians.

However, none of the Middle Eastern countries that emerged from the
break-up of the Ottoman Empire are labeled with ethnic identities.
They are known under historic and/or geographic names and regard the
presence of various ethnic and/or religious communities within their
borders as a given. Even Israel, though a special case for obvious
reasons, fits into that pattern if only because 27 per cent of its
citizens are not Jews. They are Israelis but not Israelites.

The Middle East has been the sphere of multi-ethnic empires for some
25 centuries: Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Roman, Byzantines,
Umayyad, Abbasid, Ottomans etc. So, the Kurdish state that Kak Massoud
wishes to create would be the first over 2000 years in the Middle East
to claim a purely ethnic identity.

Let's give an example of the difference between independence, which is
the right of all peoples under foreign colonial or imperial rule, and
secession. Morocco and Tunisia were both under the domination of the
French Empire in the name of colonial protection. In the 1950s they
exercised their right of self-determination and obtained their
independence without a minimum of hassle. Algeria, on the other hand,
was regarded as two provinces of the French Republic itself, elected
its own members of parliament and enjoyed full French citizenship
rights.

Thus, its demand for independence was regarded as secession and could
only be granted with the agreements of the French state, later
ratified in a national referendum throughout France. But before that
happened, Algerians had to fight a 5-year war, with perhaps half a
million dead, and go through a two-year negotiating period.

Other states have treated secession in different ways.

Canada and the United Kingdom have organized referendums in Quebec and
Scotland giving the local populations a chance to reject secession. In
Czechoslovakia and between Malaysia and Singapore, secession came
through negotiations producing divorce by consent. In the Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, secession was organized by Great Britain as
the colonial power. South Sudan's secession was ratified by the
Khartoum government after 20 years of war and six years of
negotiations.

The international community recognizes the outcome of any secession
only if it is achieved with the consent of the country concerned.
Montenegro seceded from Serbia through negotiations and was
immediately admitted into the United Nations. Kosovo also seceded but
without consent and still remains in a limbo, rejected by the UN and
recognized by only a handful of nations.

Holding referendums does not automatically bestow legitimacy on
secessionist programs. Russia has held referendum in Crimea, which it
snatched from Ukraine, and in South Ossetia and Abkhazia which it took
from Georgia. However, no other country recognizes those secessions.

The reason is that there is no mechanism in domestic or international
law to recognize non-consensual secession. The International Court of
Justice at The Hague made that clear by refusing to certify Kosovo's
independence. In Canada the High Court has ruled against Quebec
secession and in France Corsican secessionist demands have been thrown
out by courts. In Iraq, the Constitution, drafted with the full and
enthusiastic participation of Masoud, excludes unilateral secession in
articles 107 and 116 and 13.

Finally, secession does not feature in the programs of any of the
dozen or so parties active among Kurds who live in Iraq, Turkey,
Syria, Iran, Armenia and Azerbaijan. So the next step that Masoud must
take is to enshrine secession in his party's charter and manifesto for
the next Iraqi general election in 2018. If he does that and obtains
mandate to seek secession he could then demand that the central
government in Baghdad enter into negotiations on the issue of
secession.

In other words, any attempt at a unilateral declaration of
independence could lead only to impasse, a deadly impasse.