Article on prospects for gold confiscation

By Bill Murphy, Chairman
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
Saturday, February 10, 2001

-- Johannesburg, South Africa.

My meeting yesterday with Ms. Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka,
South Africa's minister for mines and energy, went very
well. Attending the meeting was Thabo Mafoko of the
Department of Minerals and Energy International
Relations. Ms. Ngcuka left directly from our breakfast
meeting to take her seat in Parliament to hear the
opening address by President Thabo Mbeki. I was told
that if she gets her teeth into something, Ms. Ngcuka
will not let go.

Right before Ms. Ngcuka left for Parliament, she
conferred with Mafoko, who then called a friend in
Pretoria, South Africa's capital. It's unusual, having
the capital in one part of the country and Parliament
in another. Ms. Ngcuka felt it was very important that
I present GATA's views to the Finance Ministry and the
Reserve Bank of South Africa. So, on short notice,
Thabo arranged a meeting for me with both agencies for
Monday morning.

Monday should be something. First I have an early-
morning meeting with Sinzeni Zukwann, president of the
National Union of Mineworkers, in Johannesburg,
followed by the late-morning meeting in Pretoria. Then
back to Johannesburg for a South African Broadcasting
Co. interview, followed by a Reuters interview. It will
be good to head for home Monday evening.

GATA's full-page advertisement in Business Day has been
a real plus. Some of the feedback to me:

quot;Now the low gold price all makes sense.quot;

quot;The ad's explanation of gold market activity makes it
clear what is happening.quot;

quot;It's American colonialism all over again.quot;

quot;Anglogold must be stopped from taking over Gold
Fields.quot;

quot;It's the English and the U.S. versus the Afrikanners,
blacks, and GATA.quot;

When I get home I will write about the entire trip to
South Africa, which has gone far better than I could
have dreamed. For the moment I am concentrating on the
task at hand: to persuade leading officials to pressure
Washington to respond to our claims specifically, not
vaguely. GATA suggests that they go directly to the U.S
Treasury Department for some answers. This is important
because the U.S. Treasury is a defendant in the
GATA/Howe lawsuit and must decide its course of action
by March 15, the deadline for responding in writing to
the judge in U.S. District Court in Boston.

The new treasury secretary, Paul O'Neil, and President
Bush must decide whether to continue the gold fraud and
be a defendant in the Howe Complaint or to tell the
court that they are going to look into the charges
themselves. An investigation by the new treasury
secretary would be very significant and could indicate
that the jig is almost up. I am stressing this to the
officials I meet. They have a brief opportunity to
influence the direction of the new U.S.
administration.

The significance of Washington's response to South
Africa cannot be emphasized too much. It will affect
not only the economy of South Africa but those of the
whole southern part of the continent. This brings up an
issue Reg Howe focused on when he was in Cape Town.

That is: Who gave the bullion banks, the U.S. Treasury,
and the Fed the authority to make U.S. foreign policy?
By holding down the gold price, the gold cartel is
stifling the economies of southern Africa to benefit
itself. In essence, the cartel is making U.S. foreign
policy. It will come back to haunt the United States in
the years to come.

This is something I intend to cover with David Hale,
global chief economist of the Zurich Group, who was the
keynote speaker at the Indaba 2001 conference last
week. Hale was also the featured speaker at the
Australian Gold Conference last year. After his
presentatio, we chatted for a bit as he knows Frank
Veneroso and read GATA's ad in Business Day. Because
Hale has great in the gold market, he said he would
like to discuss GATA's work in the near future.

It looks like I will be coming back to South Africa in
early July to speak at the 14th Annual Labor Law
Conference in Durban. As many as 2,000 people attend,
and almost every major company that does business in
South Africa is represented. The gold cartel is going
to know that GATA will not go away until we get the job
done.