Another reason is the support by substantial numbers of Kurds for the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, the term Kurds use for the northeastern section of the country. According to Al-Jazeera TV, on December 29 a delegation of the Kurdish Referendum Movement handed the chief United Nations official working on the organization of elections in Iraq a petition calling for a referendum on Kurdish independence. More than 1.7 million Kurds, almost half the Kurdish population in northern Iraq, signed the petition. The Kurds represent 20 percent of the country’s population of 25 million.

Efforts by Kurdish political parties to bolster limited autonomy from Baghdad that already exists on the ground, and the widespread support for Kurdish independence highlight the explosive threat the struggle for Kurdish self-determination represents to imperialism and bourgeois regimes in the region.

Thousands of Kurds were forcibly removed from Kirkuk and the surrounding area in the 1980s by the Saddam Hussein government. Their lands and homes were given to thousands of Sunni Arabs, many of whom were also forced to move to the area, in a Baathist “Arabization” program to strengthen the regime’s hold over the strategic region.

U.S. officials estimate that Kurdish resettlement efforts have so far forced 100,000 Arabs to leave. Some Kurdish leaders have proposed that the January 30 elections be postponed in the Kurdish areas until the resettlement of Kirkuk is complete.

Hamid Afandi, a prominent minister in the Kurdish regional government based in Erbil, northern Iraq, has suggested that Kurds take control of Kirkuk and get a larger share of its oil revenues. “We are ready to fight against all forces to control Kirkuk,” he told the New York Times. Afandi said that so far Washington has blocked such a move.

The Iraqi government has also expressed irritation at Kurdish officials signing deals with foreign companies to develop oil fields under Kurdish control. Baghdad has warned foreign companies against making such deals with anyone other than representatives of the central government.

Though the main political parties in Iraqi Kurdistan have repeatedly reassured Washington and Baghdad that they are for a “united, federated Iraq,” there is widespread support among Kurds for independence. This is what the petition recently turned over to UN officials reflected.

UN officials have balked. “We have all been working on the basis that you are going to have a unitary state, an Iraq that is united and at peace with itself and its neighbors,” UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said at a recent news conference.

Kurdish parties are also pressing to preserve a provision in the current Iraqi constitution that gives them broad veto powers over most laws passed by Baghdad. They have said that they will take part in the January 30 elections and the writing of a new Iraqi constitution on the condition that the veto provision is maintained. Iraq’s interim constitution, known as the Transitional Administrative Law, allows a two-thirds majority in any three provinces to block the ratification of a new constitution. Kurds constitute the large majority in three of Iraq’s northern provinces, enabling them to defeat attempts to weaken Kurdish autonomy.

Leaders of the largest Shiite-led parties, including Ali al-Sistani, the leading Shiite cleric, have said that the provision for Kurdish autonomy may no longer be in effect after the upcoming elections.

The U.S-backed Iraqi interim government has little, if any, authority in the northern region of Iraq, according to an article in the December 31 New York Times. While it is nearly impossible to find an Iraqi flag displayed anywhere in the region, the Kurdish flag flies everywhere, including atop an Iraqi border guard compound.

In stark contrast to parts of Iraq dominated by Sunni Arabs, who made up the backbone of support for Baathist rule, the Kurdish provinces are in the midst of a construction boom. The 10-story Hotel Erbil in the provincial capital opened last October and its 167 rooms are often sold out, according to the Times.

Tight security is maintained throughout the region by a substantial police force and the 80,000-member Kurdish military comprised mostly of former pesh merga guerrillas. Thousands of these fighters were sent into Mosul last November when Iraqi police fled their posts in face of Baathist attacks. Though the Kurdish troops are officially incorporated into the Iraqi army, they functions largely independently of Baghdad.

Together with another 20 million Kurds living in a territory that covers parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Armenia, the Iraqi Kurds make up an oppressed nationality first subjugated by the Ottoman empire. Baghdad, Ankara, Tehran, and Damascus fear that any move toward independence, or even formal autonomy, by Iraqi Kurds could be a mortal threat to their states as it would inspire national struggles among their Kurdish populations.

The main Kurdish political parties in Iraq—the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)—have hitched the future of the Kurdish struggle for self-determination to the wagon of U.S. imperialism. In exchange, Washington has tolerated a degree of autonomy for the Kurdish administration in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Kurds have every reason to be concerned about moves against the limited autonomy they have obtained. In the aftermath of the 1991 U.S.-led war against Iraq, the Kurdish people revolted against Baathist rule and held many villages and towns, including Kirkuk, for a week or more. At the time, Washington stood aside as the Hussein regime sent helicopter gunships and heavy armor to crush the Kurdish uprising.  
 
 
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