Ello, m8s! I've been invited by Dean to weigh in on this tread so,.....eh.
It's not just the main trade hub. The entire jump route between all three(or four) trade hubs are being picked about and jihad'd. It's not about trade, and the mineral stockpiles were purchased previously in response to CCP removing unique drone mineral drops from Drone anomalies and the so-called Drone Regions. Most of the minerals in the eve economy come from these drops and a massive number of capitals/super capitals were built using this "gun mining".
When The Mittani (GoonSwarm Alliance CEO) was running for the Council of Stellar Management(CSM), he had goal milestones and "prizes" announced for reaching these. Reaching 10k votes was what put "Burn Jita" into action. After he was thrown under the bus by CCP for comments made at the Alliance Panel during fanfest, Burn Jita took on another meaning. Because of what those that had grudges against GSF, The Mittani, and nullsec in general; Burn Jita became a way to extract massive amount of carebear tears and wreck havoc in supposedly "safe" hisec.
It's something akin to class warfare. For many years, most Nullsec alliances payed no heed to CSM activities. Due to not having a voice in this process; nullsec had been on the end of some downright disgusting nerfs while watching hisec get buffed. During CSM 5, they went too far. After nerfing the npc bounties and spawns in hisec, and then nerfing jump bridges(jump bridges allow nullsec residents to bypass gates, and travel good distance in short time through vast networks from their alliance and other coalition members), enough was enough.
Nullsec put their candidates forth, and voted with superior numbers and organization. This was also during the time of the infamous "monoclegate"(enough has been said on this elsewheres, os go look it up), and the complete loss of focus on the "flying in space"(FiS), toward "walking in stations"(Wis) and ambulation. Moving away from just an avatar, and actually becoming actual people, interacting in environments other than just ships in space. This was also during development of "World of Darkness", an MMO based on Vampire: The Masquerade, and the WiS portion of eve was chided as little more than beta testing of the Carbon Engine for WoD.
Back to the important parts: The rise of NullSec CSM. Under Chairman Mittani, FiS was thrust solely in the forefront for CCP. Eve was seeing an unprecedented amount of welcomed balances, and new ships as well. A lot of people didn't enjoy the fact that this wall all due to competent nullsec players; let alone from a Goon, and went about slandering and chastising anything and everything that came from it.
After CSM 6 and with voting finished for CSM7(which The Mittani won his Chair again), he got wasted at fanfest during the Alliance Panel, said some off-hand remarks heard everyday by plenty of people in game, and was nailed to a cross for it. A massive campaign...a machine was put into action. The same type of publicity campaign that worked to get CCP to change direction and focus on FiS in eve; was now being used to completely derail and remove The Mittani from the CSM, and Eve. The Mittani apologised, owned up to his words, and resigned CSM 6, as well as his forthcoming CSM 7 chairmanship. Due to the pressure CCP was under, they felt it necessary to remove him for CSM 7 completely, and banned him for 30 days. GSF, and all their allies were out for blood, and already had a date: April 28th.
It's rather entertaining that the economic rebalancing would come as this is scheduled. Along wiht all the shifts in the market, the nullsec entities that have control of Technitium(only available in nullsec, required for tech two ships building) would announce the formation of OTEC, or Organization of Technetium Exporting Corporations. The squeeze is being put to those who have no clue how much force and control those of us on the outside can exert in their "safe" little world. And after everyone is finished in hisec, they can fade back to null and continue to take care of our own organizations.
I'll take any questions you guys have, and try to answer them to the best of my abilities.
