By Chris Powell
Secretary/Treasurer, Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA)
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
At the invitation of gold’s local friends, your secretary/treasurer is visiting Suriname, the former Dutch Guyana, a gold-mining country in South America, to explain and document the gold price suppression scheme of Western central banks and to urge the country to mobilize against it. Coincidentally, this week the operators of the two biggest gold mines in Suriname, Iamgold and Newmont Mining, announced that because of low prices they are postponing their plans to increase employment here.
An interview with your secretary/treasurer was published Monday on the front page of the country’s largest newspaper, De Ware Tijd in the capital city, Paramaribo, and is appended, translated from Dutch, along with a related story published today.
An interview on national television is scheduled tonight and a lecture at the University of Suriname tomorrow, along with meetings with government officials and civic leaders.
The democratic, free-market, limited-government revolution lives — and there’s beer!
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
GATA Representative Says:
‘West Cheats Suriname with Low Gold Price’
By Ivan Cairo
De Ware Tijd
Paramaribo, Suriname
Monday, February 3, 2014
Chris Powell, co-founder of the U.S.-based Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, accuses Western countries and institutions of deliberately keeping the price of gold at a low level.
The United States, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been conspiring for decades to influence the international gold market, he says.
GATA has been voicing its conspiracy theory on how wheeling and dealing by the American government, the Federal Reserve (the U.S. central banking system), other Western central banks, and the IMF have deliberately created a low price for gold and maintained that to their advantage to protect their own national currencies.
GATA’s proof for its theory includes a 1999 IMF document kept from the public. The document describes in detail how the gold market is manipulated and influenced to force the price to an acceptable level. A former president of the Netherlands central bank made reference to gold price suppression in his memoirs, Powell says.
Unfortunately GATA has not had any luck with its international campaign so far. Large gold-producing nations including South Africa have not heeded its advice to protest the unfair dealing. Even gold multinationals, which would profit from a higher price have not protested.
Powell explains that it all has to do with the amount of capital invested in the gold industry. The capital comes from the international capital market, another institution that profits from a low price of gold. “If mining companies go public with their accusations, they might not get the funds needed for their investment plans,” he says.
Powell argues that in the 1960s Western central banks kept the price of gold low by selling part of their reserves. As reserves plummeted they found new methods. One often-used method is issuing certificates for fake gold.
Recent years have seen the creation of large quantities of fake gold, Powell says. However, the banks never really have the gold and they would all go bankrupt if the public started selling their certificates and demanded their gold.
Powell considers the move by the Central Bank of Suriname to sell part of its gold reserves an enormous blunder. The move was likely instigated by the IMF, he says. Gold is a solid currency with much more value than some experts claim, he adds.
New Front for Democracy and Development Party leader Carl Breevald says this is the first time he has heard about this theory. He will ask questions about this in Parliament. The party had questioned the sale of the gold reserves, he says, so Powell’s theory deserves closer study.
Although he is not aware of GATA’s statements and principles, Breeveld says, it would be unwise to ignore them. That South Africa refuses to act should not keep Suriname from trying to find out if GATA’s statements are true.
Selling Some Gold Said to be Good Move
By Ivan Cairo
De Ware Tijd
Paramaribo, Suriname
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Although there has been locally strong criticism of the sale of part of the national gold reserves, there was, according to financial expert Amwedhkar Jethu, nothing wrong with the sale. On the contrary, he believes that this “has been a good deal for our country.”
Besides opposition in parliament, criticism has come from Chris Powell, co-founder of a pressure group that agitates against alleged fraud in the international gold market.
The political opposition in Suriname sees no reason to criticize the state treasury for the sale of gold, but rather with what has been done with the money as state finances decline. Powell believes that gold is a harder currency than the euro and the dollar and should not have been sold. Its value, he says, will increase over time. He says Western central banks are keeping the gold price down.
Jethu replies that “selling gold is an integral part of the reserve management policies of central banks. … Gold and currency reserves must be managed dynamically. Selling gold reserves to raise the U.S. dollar component of the reserves, and vice versa, are normal reserve-management operations.”
The president of the central bank explained at events why it was necessary to sell gold reserves. Holding so much gold, he said, was unhealthy monetary policy and too great a risk while the price is coming down.
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