Joe Duggan (Reporter)
A SUNKEN Spanish galleon containing a €15.4 billion hoard of treasure has sparked a tug-of-war between Spain and Colombia.
The San Jose was returning to King Philip V of Spain when it was sunk by British pirates off the Colombian coast in 1709.
It was carrying treasure chests loaded with diamonds, emeralds and Spanish ‘pieces of eight’ coins – booty which could be worth billions to the Spanish economy.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel García-Margallo and Colombian counterpart Ángela Holguín are meeting for discussions regarding the future of the find.
Garcia-Margallo has admitted that the two countries have their differences, particularly as Colombia isn’t a signatory to any international conventions on discovered treasure.
Brutalised the indigenous people. worked them to death by the thousand, stole their assets and now wants to claim them.
Even if Columbia is successful in securing the loot, it will not go to the descendants of the people who lost everything, most especially their culture and their land.
It will be grafted away by the descendants of those who robbed them and murdered them in the first place – the conquistadores.
The Spanish carry on with what they mastered best in the past: waiting for a ship full of gold, silver and gemstones arriving from their American colonies. This attitude protects them from the trouble of thinking about new ways of earning money by participating in the global industrial competition.
Those treasure ships still come quietly in, enriching the same kind of buccaneers. Instead of gold and jewels though, they contain a valuable white-powder cargo. Leaving behind them similar carnage among the native population as before.