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September 27th, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Carles Puigdemont, President of Spain’s Catalonia region, congratulated Masoud Barzani, President of Iraq’s Kurdistan Autonomous Region, on the occasion of Monday’s Kurdish independence referendum.
In a Tweet, published on Tuesday, Carles Puigdemont said “This morning I called President Masoud Barzani to congratulate him on the Kurdish Referendum. We wished each other great success.”
The people of Catalonia are expected to hold their own referendum on independence from Spain on Sunday, six days after the Kurdistan Autonomous Region (KAR) of Iraq held its referendum.
The Catalan parliament set October 1 for their vote, a move that has been rejected by the Spanish government just as the Kurdistan referendum has been rejected by the Iraqi central government.
The KAR held the independence referendum on Monday, facing threats of economic sanctions as well as military action from the federal government of Iraq in Baghdad, from Iran-backed Hashd al-Shaabi militants, Turkey, as well as from Iran. The outcome is expected to be known by Wednesday evening or Thursday morning when all votes have been counted.
People waiting to cast their vote in Monday’s referendum in Kurdistan.
Seeking to prevent the vote from proceeding, Spanish authorities have detained officials, raided offices, and seized documents and literature related to the referendum. Tens of thousands have protested the arrests. Catalan leaders have vowed the vote will go ahead anyway.
Catalonia has self-governance in certain areas such as police, health, education but key areas such as foreign affairs, taxes as well as infrastructure are in the hands of the central government in Madrid.
Catalonia has long complained that Madrid is using a disproportionate amount of funds on development in other regions, especially Madrid, while Catalonia is being neglected. Basques have similar grievances.
International law, standard and precedence is as multifaceted as the debate in Spain and Catalonia. The UN General Assembly, in its 1973 Declaration of Principles, stressed that a State’s right to territorial integrity and people’s right to self-determination are equally valid, but that the one cannot have primacy above the other when it violates the other.
Catalonians protest after national police arrests elected officials and storms ministries. Photo courtesy Catalan National Assembly.
This would mean that Catalonians have the right to self-determination but are obliged to achieve it legally within the Spanish constitutional framework. Conversely this – arguably – also means that a central government must if necessary adopt constitutional change that would make a secession legal and specify how it can be achieved.
Spanish and international precedent is a mixed basket. The central government in Madrid has for decades cracked down on Catalonian and especially Basque separatist movements, parties, activists and politicians. Crack downs have often been brutal and led to decades of armed struggle between the central government and the Basque ETA. A recent referendum in Scottland was held peacefully, but there were critics on both sides, making it probable that the issue of independence from the UK may be picked up again depending in part on Britain’s BREXIT from the EU.
In Crimea the referendum was held without approval from the central Ukrainian government in Kiev. The central government in Kiev would, conversely, not have agreed to allow a secession within the constitutional framework or allowed constitutional reform. The referendum was held with strong Russian support and the referendum as well as Crimea’s accession into the Russian Federation are internationally disputed.
On September 25 the Kurdistan Autonomous Region (KAR) of Iraq has scheduled an independence referendum. The central Shia-dominated government in Baghdad declares the referendum unconstitutional. Leading Iranian, Turkish and Iraqi politicians warned that the referendum would lead to war. The US and most EU countries find the timing bad and urge to wait until ISIS has been defeated. Russia supports the right to hold the referendum. Both Spanish and international precedent shows, in other words, that there is a potential for disastrous developments in Spain and Catalonia.
CH/L – nsnbc 26.09.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/09/26/86409/
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