Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, addressing the National Conference for a Moratorium on Foreclosures in Detroit March 31, 2012. Azikiwe outlined the economic crisis that has evolved over the last four decades. (Photo: Bryan Pfeifer), a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Detroit Demonstration Calls for Moratorium on Debt Service
Protest coincides with day of action against Bank of America
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Photos From the May 9, 2012 Demonstration Outside Bank of America in Detroit
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Banks are responsible for the destruction of the cities and Detroit is a prime example of this fact, according to demonstrators who gathered on May 9 outside the Guardian Building downtown. The building houses the Bank of America headquarters in the embattled city which was recently forced into a so-called “Financial Stability Agreement” (FSA) which mandates the payment of over $16 billion to financial institutions.
Bank of America is the second largest holder of municipal debt in the United States. They are followed only by JPMorgan Chase which has recently been in the news for a scandal costing the firm $2 billion in a risky trading scheme.
On May 11, JPMorgan Chase endured a $15 billion loss in value on the stock market. Despite claims of a recovery in the worst capitalist economic crisis since the Great Depression, much of the information provided through the corporate media indicates that the system is still in dire straits in the U.S. as well as throughout Europe and Asia.
Detroit: The Hardest Hit
In Detroit, which has been perhaps the hardest hit municipality in the current crisis, the electorate has been disenfranchised and the public school system is under the control of an emergency manager. Efforts aimed at forcing the state to nullify Public Act 4, the so-called “dictator law,” has been thwarted by two Republican canvass board members in Lansing who said that the 226,000 signatures gathered contained the wrong sized font on the petitions and were therefore invalid.
However, the demonstration on May 9 that was called by the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs demanded that the city politicians refuse to pay the banks and instead keep public monies to fund municipal jobs, public transportation and human services. Protesters gathered outside the Bank of America at rush hour and chanted “Money for the City, Not for Banks.”
This demonstration, which was also endorsed by the Occupy Detroit Eviction Defense Committee, the Southeast Michigan Jobs With Justice Coalition, UAW Local 600 and the Committee for Justice for Aiyana Jones, was the first of its kind in the city that specifically focused on the need to stop the banks from draining the municipal treasury. The Financial Stability Agreement is mandating large-scale employee and service cuts that include up to 3,500 lay-offs and the closing of the departments of health and human services.
Don’t Pay the Banks!
After picketing the Bank of America for forty-five minutes, the demonstrators marched through the financial district to the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center (CAYMAC), the City Hall, where a rally featuring several speakers was held. Speakers at the rally included anti-foreclosure Atty. Vanessa Fluker, Wayne County Commissioner Martha G. Scott, activist Atty. Jerome Goldberg, A.J. Freer, Vice-President of UAW Local 600 and City Councilperson JoAnn Watson.
In a statement read by the Moratorium NOW! Coalition at the demonstration it pointed out that “The Mayor and the City Council (5-4 vote) caved in to Gov. Snyder and Wall Street by handing the City over to a Financial Advisory Board (FAB). The purpose of the FAB is to guarantee the looting of Detroit by the banks by insuring the ‘payment in full of the scheduled debt service requirements on all bonds, notes and municipal securities’ (Public Act 4). “
The statement went on to stress that the “Snyder financial review team reported the City of Detroit paid $597 million to the banks in 2010 for debt service. The same banks that destroyed the neighborhoods of Detroit by their racist, predatory, sub-prime, criminal mortgages will be assured of getting paid from the City’s treasury.”
Moratorium NOW! Coalition members are calling for a citywide town hall meeting to build a broader alliance to fight the banks. This alliance would organize additional demonstrations and more militant actions in defense of the people whose city has been systematically destroyed by the capitalist system.
Other actions which are taking place in Detroit include the campaign to move people into the thousands of foreclosed and abandoned homes across the city. Also a lawsuit was filed in Wayne County Circuit Court on May 11 to prevent the closure of the Human Services Department and the transferal of its authority to private entities outside the city in Wyandotte.
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