BACKLASH FEARS AS KURDS GO TO POLLS

People in ethnically diverse areas are braced for clashes after the referendum,

The Iraqi Kurdish cities of Erbil and Duhok were reverberating to the sound of Kurdish music and honking cars yesterday, ahead of today’s controversial independence referendum.

But it was a different story in the more ethnically diverse areas taking part in today’s vote, including in the city of Kirkuk where many people were keeping their heads down and preparing for the potential outbreak of violence between Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

This is not the first time Iraq’s Kurds have called for independence from Baghdad. But the timing of the this one is unique, coming when Kurdish forces have control of several disputed areas coveted by Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government, including oil-rich Kirkuk.

Miqdad Faidhulla, a Kurdish member of the Iraqi Islamic Party in Kirkuk, said tensions between the KRG’s peshmerga forces and Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi’s government in the city had reached a peak.

“It’s reaching a military problem – imagine two motivated armed groups fighting over one city,” he said, referring to the peshmerga and the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), an Iranian-backed umbrella group of mainly Shiite militias sanctioned by Baghdad.

Kirkuk’s shopping streets were quieter than usual yesterday as residents stayed indoors, having stocked up on food, with some sending family members to other cities.

“If the referendum is used as a way to establish complete Kurdish political control over the city, there is likely to be a significant backlash from Turkmen and Arab residents,” said Michael Stephens of the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London.

One young Arab man in Kirkuk predicted violence. “If the two sides continue like this, there will be conflict,” he said, referring to the KRG and Baghdad.

In addition to the rivalry between the KRG and Baghdad, Kirkuk is also contending with a recently divided ruling party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). While Kirkuk’s governor, PUK member Najmadin Karim, has publicly supported the referendum, others in the party had until yesterday wanted it postponed.

But although some Kurds are calling for the vote to be delayed, many more are readying themselves to head to the polls to vote yes, believing the referendum could be the beginning of the end of modern-day Iraq.

“We have been waiting for the right moment for 100 years, and it never came,” said Osamah Golpy, 32, an Erbil-based editor at the Kudish news site Rudaw English. “I think the time is not right unless you make it right.”

Golpy is from the Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja, where one of Saddam Hussein’s most notorious assaults on the Kurds took place in 1988 – a five-hour chemical attack that killed about 5,000 civilians.

The son of a veteran peshmerga fighter and a former refugee, Golpy believes an independent Kurdistan would give him and his people security.

“The benefit of leaving Iraq is that for the first time in my life I feel safe, I feel like there is a Kurdish army, a Kurdish state that protects my life from another genocide,” he said.

“I think we, like the Jews, have come to the conclusion that only a state by the Kurdish people and for the Kurdish people can protect us.”

Despite Halabja’s troubled past, some of its younger residents are choosing to vote no as a result of their disillusionment with the autonomous region’s ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Golpy’s younger brother, Mariwan, has a degree ,but the dire financial situation in the region means he has to drive a taxi for a living.

“He thinks voting no is the right revenge on Kurdish leaders who promised young people like him a good life,” Golpy said.

North of Halabja in the PUK-stronghold of Sulaymaniyah, visible signs of support for the referendum were hard to find, according to one resident.

One of the city’s main roads was partly hung with flags, said Rawand Saeed, 26, but “the rest of the bazaar and the city are quite normal”.

Mr Saeed was adamant that most of the city would vote yes today but said political disputes between the Kurdish factions had dampened enthusiasm for the yes campaign.

“If you talk to people, they are all for independence, but when you walk into the city you can’t visibly see that there’s a thing called referendum,” he said.

Outside Iraq, voting got under way on Saturday for members of the Kurdish diaspora.

Film director Beri Shalmashi, 33, voted yes from her family home in the Netherlands capital, Amsterdam.

“To see a part of Kurdistan stubborn enough to be able to set up a referendum is a big deal,” Shalmashi said.

“I truly felt part of history, part of a point of no return for Kurdistan and for the region.”