Kurdish leader: Referendum must be held before US elections and Mosul war

CAMBRIGE, UNITED KINGDOM — Now is the perfect time for the long-anticipated referendum on Kurdish independence and they must make hold it before the US presidential elections and the battle for Mosul, legendary Peshmerga leader Muhammad Haji Mahmoud, known as Kaka Hama, told an audience in Cambridge this week.

Kaka Hama, head of the Kurdish Socialist Party was at Cambridge University, England, to talk about the war against the Islamic State (ISIS) and the future of the Kurdistan Region. The event was organised by the Kurdish Society.

He said new states did not come into existence in times of peace, but on the contrary history has shown crises and wars to give birth to new states: the First and Second World Wars, and the collapse of the former Soviet Union resulted in many independent countries, he argued.

“What started as the Arab Spring turned to be the Kurdish Spring,” he said, warning meanwhile that this course might be costly, “If we ask for independence, we have to prepare ourselves to face starvation, financial crisis, and as we do now, to sustain death itself.”

Kaka Hama said that a referendum is to show the world what the Kurds in Iraq want.

“The referendum does not necessarily result in immediate independence…it is a card and a mandate in the Kurdish hands to negotiate it with the Iraqi government, the regional powers, and the West…It is to prove to the rest of the world that in fact [officially] 99% of the Kurds favour independence,” he explained.

In 2005 the Kurdistan Region held an unofficial and non-binding referendum in which 98.8 percent voted for separation from Iraq. The call has since become louder especially after almost a complete collapse of relations between Baghdad and Erbil in recent years.

Kaka Hama who has been leading part of the frontline against ISIS since 2014 in the Kirkuk region, said that the Kurds have had a century of bitter experience with Iraq. Chemical attacks and genocide under Sunni rule, he said, and economic sanctions under the Shiite rule.

“We created a fantasy for ourselves that the Shiites in Iraq are our friends,” he said, speaking to the audience of recent clashes between the Kurdish Peshmerga and Shiite militia in the town of Tuz Khurmatu. “Where indeed they might have their own plans and plots against the Kurds,”

“While our Peshmerga shares a 1000-kilometer border with ISIS, [the Shiite militia] came from behind and stabbed us in the back,” he added.

Kaka Hama lamented the fact that the war with ISIS has cost the Kurds dearly, including the death of 1,400 Peshmerga soldiers, 7,000 wounded and the brutal massacre of the Yezidi Kurds in Shingal. But, he added, the Kurdish determined war has gained them global respect.

“America and Russia are competing to show which one is helping the Kurds the most,” he said, as he criticized Western countries for not inviting the Kurds to anti-ISIS forums.

“There are about 64 countries in the coalition against ISIS spearheaded by US and Russia who provide air support, but the only effective force on the ground are the Kurds in Iraq and Syria,” he said.