-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 21, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------

White House & Congress strip D.C. of home rule

By Malcolm Cummins in Washington

On Aug. 5, a gang of wealthy bankers and real-estate moguls seized control of the city government in Washington.

On that date, President Bill Clinton signed the misnamed District of Columbia Rescue Bill. That legislation puts a Financial Control Board in charge of nine major city departments, including Public Works, Health, Education and Welfare.

The board acts as the point people for Congress and the White House.

Congress once again rules the city directly. The mayor has been overthrown. The city council has been overthrown.

While these elected offices still exist on paper, they have been stripped of power.

Since Washington has a majority African American population, this action is viewed here as a racist coup d'etat.

But the coup makers may have miscalculated the depth of anger their actions would provoke in the city. Loss of home rule has already provoked mass resistance in the city.

African American community activists are calling for a massive, city-wide demonstration in early September to kick out the dictatorship and restore democratic rule to the city.

During the first week of August, pro tests targeted the board, Congress and the White House in actions that resulted in a total of 30 arrests. In recent months, Financial Control Board meetings have been the site of scores of demonstrations, some of them quite militant.

THE STRUGGLE FOR HOME RULE

Washington has always been more or less a colony of the Congress.

Until 1975 Congress ruled the city directly through a Board of Commissioners. There was no mayor. No city council. D.C. residents didn't even have the right to vote in presidential elections.

In 1975, mass anger forced Congress to grant limited home rule. For the first time residents could vote to elect a mayor and city council.

But this limited democratic reform left the city in a neocolonial status in relation to Congress. City residents were still not allowed to elect a voting member to the House of Representatives or to the Senate.

The rich white men on the Hill still held control of the D.C. purse strings. And Congress retained its right to approve any legislation passed by the city council.

Many in the city point out that Hong Kong was recently freed from colonial bondage to Britain. But Washington is again being subjected to colonial rule.

WHO PROFITS?

Clinton's ink had barely dried on the bill when Financial Control Board Chairperson Andrew Brimmer rushed to seize control of the city government.

Brimmer told the nine department heads that they now worked for him and ordered them to meet with the board the next morning. Mayor Marion Barry--who is African American-- was excluded from the meeting.

The economic policy the Financial Control Board is trying to ram through here resembles a Structural Adjustment Program imposed by the imperialist banks on the economies of many Third World countries.

This program aims to make massive cuts in social programs and education, privatize many city services and give huge tax breaks, incentives and handouts to bankers, investors and real-estate developers.

These same people compose the coup makers of the Control Board.

The Financial Control Board, in a creeping coup, had already taken the reins of the schools and police away from elected city officials earlier this year. The board took over the public schools six months ago.

Schools will not open as scheduled on Sept. 2 because the buildings are dangerously rife with safety violations.

The board had appointed a Pentagon general to run the schools six months ago in order to "save" the system.

FEDS AND COPS HARASS COMMUNITIES

As with any dictatorship, getting hold of the repressive apparatus of the state is essential for implementing its program.

The Control Board already took effective control of the Washington police department earlier this year by mandating its right to appoint all the deputies below the police chief. The chief of police now reports to the Control Board more than to the mayor.

But even this was not enough control. The new legislation also directs the 32 federal police agencies that operate in the city to enter into "cooperative agreements" with the D.C. police to more effectively assert direct colonial control over the city.

That means the legislation puts the weight of Congress behind joint patrols of city streets by FBI agents, uniformed Secret Service and Parks police and other federal agents together with D.C. cops.

Federal agents and city cops have launched a massive attack on poor neighborhoods in the city. This assault is racist.

The cops have created what they term "red zones" in oppressed communities. These areas are more like "free-fire zones" in which the police act with impunity.

If cops find more than two or three young people of color together on the street, they throw them up against the wall and search them. This is just an excuse to shake down and harass youths.

Motorists--predominantly African Americans--are being imprisoned for minor traffic infractions so that the police can meet arrest quotas.

Now the Control Board is also wrench ing the prison system away from the local government.

With the new legislation, D.C. prisoners will come under federal sentencing guidelines, which are much more severe. Parole will be abolished, the city prison at Lorton in Virginia will be closed and prisoners will be transferred into the federal system.

- END -

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to: info@workers.org. Web: http://www.workers.org)

Copyright © 1997 workers.org