Gold market alert from Midas

By Bill Murphy, Chairman
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
Friday, March 9, 2001

The following article appeared in last night's Platt's
news dispatches and was reprinted today by Reuters:

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New York (Platt's) 8 Mar 2001 -- A member of South
Africa's Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA), a
free-market activist group, has written to U.S. Treasury
Secretary Paul O'Neill, asking him to intervene to free
the gold market from what the group alleges are certain
special interests that are holding down gold prices.

quot;We appeal to you to help us to free the gold market
from government intervention,quot; said Gordon Bamford
in a letter shared with GATA members. quot;Given a free
international gold market, thousands of jobless South
Africans and people of other gold-producing countries
in Africa would have an opportunity to live in dignity
and in societies less prone to crime.quot;

From 1949 to 1987 Bamford, a retired South African
gold mining executive, was involved with management
of South African gold mines, including JCI's deep
mines.

Bamford said he is quot;convinced that there is
overwhelming evidence of collusionquot; between various
governments to keep gold prices low. quot;During the past
10 years the price was contained below a $420 ceiling,
then locked into a relentless downtrend, settling in
a narrow band between $260 and $285/oz,quot; he stated.
quot;The gold mining industry was forced to retrench much
of its labor force in order to stay afloat. The mines
once under my control reduced their numbers by 40
percent. In contrast to this tale of woe among
producers, demand for gold has risen every year, and
the gap between mine supply and total offtake has
continued to widen,quot; while prices declined.

Bamford said he and many former colleagues have
concluded that the price is being quot;held down artificially.quot;
Bamford cited the gold market's behavior to support
his case:

quot;Since 1994 whenever the price of gold threatened to
recover, a much-publicized sale of many tons of gold
was announced by one or another banking institution.quot;
He said the quot;regularly declared intentionquot; of O'Neill's
predecessors at Treasury to maintain dollar strength
also caused quot;considerable suspicion that a deliberate
and coordinated effort to suppress the price of gold
has formed a key part of that (dollar) strategy.quot; He
suggested O'Neill could help liberalize the gold
market. quot;You have come out of the aluminum industry;
if the price of that metal behaved the same way,
you'd have wanted to know why.quot;

Another GATA member, Reginald Howe, filed a lawsuit
last December in U.S. District Court in Boston,
accusing five investment houses, the Bank for
International Settlements, and top officials of the
U.S. Treasury Department and U.S. Federal Reserve
Board of conspiring to suppress the price of gold.
In his allegations, Howe pointed out that the gold
price was fixed at $289/oz for the three years ending
1997, 1998 and 1999 and said this was too much of a
coincidence to be the result of a free market.

* * *

The truth about the manipulation of the gold price by
the gold cartel is spreading around the world.