Protestors Shut Down BAE Systems Testing Center in Sterling Heights, Disrupting Profits to the War Machine

Report from recent demonstration and action outside of BAE Systems in so-called Sterling Heights, Michigan.

From Sterling Heights to Palestine, occupation is a crime. Early on Wednesday morning, January 17th, 45 anti-imperialist, pro–Palestine activists blockaded the only two entrances to BAE Systems manufacturing and testing center in Sterling Heights, Michigan during peak workday start time, preventing staff and clients from entering the building.

BAE Systems Land and Armaments L.P. is a wholly owned subsidiary of BAE Systems Plc, responsible for the design, development, and production of combat vehicles, ammunition, artillery systems, naval guns, and missile launchers. BAE Systems supplies the Israeli military with a wide variety of weapons, including components for combat aircraft, munitions, missile launching kits, and armored vehicles. BAE technologies are also integrated into Israel’s main weapon systems, including fighter jets, drones, and warships. These weapons are often gifted to Israel through the U.S. government’s Foreign Military Financing program.

BAE’s profits come from making weapons that are being used against international law, for the genocide of the Palestinian people, and maintaining a system of Zionist apartheid laws. This system is enforced by militarized zones, checkpoints, mass arrests, surveillance, torture, and a brutal, 17-year long land, air and sea blockade against Gaza, which prevents food, medical supplies, fuel and water from entering or leaving without Zionist control.

Stopping — and even delaying — the work that creates these profits was the goal of the January 17th action. Preventing staff from starting their workdays disrupts the supply chain of the war machine. The expected expenses — of time and money — to reinforce security and surveillance all accrued extra costs to BAE Systems.

Shutting down business as usual — causing car back-ups and general confusion — on Van Dyke Highway, the main road of the Defense Corridor — and publicly demonstrating in keffiyehs and with Palestinian flags and banners, chanting “GAZA GAZA YOU WILL RISE, YEMEN IS BY YOUR SIDE” to passersby, was the cherry on top.

Shut it down, freeze it out.

The activists turned away cars for 45 minutes at both the north and south entrances before any Sterling Heights PD car showed up. Upon arrival at 7:45am, the cops just sat in their vehicles. Ten minutes later, two cops came out without any winter gear to address the blockade, but lasted less than a minute in the single digit temperatures.

Another 20 minutes later, more officers had arrived and attempted to communicate with the blockade once again, asking to speak with ”the person in charge.”

They did not find one.

Protestors at the north entrance marched to the south entrance to strengthen numbers. The blockade and chants continued.

They outnumbered and outlasted the cops with their dedication to Palestinian liberation. On their terms, at 9AM, all 45 protestors marched together from BAE Systems, across Van Dyke Highway, with no arrests or immediate repression.

Two hours in the freezing cold. Two hours of frozen profits for BAE.

This action occurred two days after Martin Luther King Day, with the primary purpose being disrupting profits of the war machine by any means necessary. Martin Luther King, often lauded for solely his civil rights activism, was a militant anti-war leader. His calls for disobedient resistance to the war machine were centered in this action for Palestine and Yemen. ”A nation that spends more on its military than on programs of social uplift is approaching its social death.” — MLK.

Death to U.S. Imperialism! Long live Palestine and Yemen!

– Michigan General Defense Committee (GDC)