Reply #5: American right-wingers involved versus the Colombian right-wing gummint. [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

From the article:

Anxiously awaiting the decision is Jack Harbeston, managing director of the Cayman Islands-registered commercial salvage company Sea Search Armada, who has taken on seven Colombian administrations over two decades in a legal fight to claim half the sunken hulk's riches.

"If I had known it was going to take this long, I wouldn't have gotten involved in the first place," said Harbeston, 75, who lives in Bellevue, Wash.

In 1982, Sea Search announced to the world it had found the San Jose's resting place 700 feet below the water's surface, a few miles from the historic Caribbean port of Cartagena. Under well-established maritime law, whoever locates a shipwreck gets the rights to recover it in a kind of finder-keepers arrangement meant to offset the huge costs of speculative exploration.

Harbeston claims he and a group of 100 U.S. investors — among them the late actor Michael Landon and convicted Nixon White House adviser John Ehrlichman — have invested more than $12 million since a deal was signed with Colombia in 1979 giving Sea Search exclusive rights to search for the San Jose and 50 percent of whatever they find.
(snip)

If Colombia DID decide to keep the ship in its territory for itself, they wouldn't have to beg for as much money from the United States to use to fund their military operations against the leftist guerrillas. Or maybe they'd just palm it and STILL keep taking huge payoffs from the US overburdened middleclass and poorer taxpayers.

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Background, from 2004:

Last Update: Friday, February 13, 2004. 4:30pm (AEDT)
US, Spain lose booty in Colombian courtroom
The galleon San Jose, jewel of the Spanish crown, sank in 1708 with tons of gold and silver aboard, but the precious booty has slipped through the fingers of US and Spanish treasure hunters in a Colombian courtroom.

The court agreed with attorney Antonio Jose Rengifo's argument that the Colombian people owned the estimated $US5 billion treasure-trove.

A Bogota tribunal denied a claim by US Sea Search Armada (SSA) to half of the booty for having discovered the ship, which the English navy had sunk in the Caribbean.

Honouring the claim would be "unconstitutional and violate the collective ownership of the national heritage".

The British sank the galleon on June 8, 1708, with 600 sailors and passengers aboard, 10 nautical miles from the port of Cartagena in 230 metres of water.

"This historic decision ends 15 years of lawsuits, which SSA brought in Colombian courts in an attempt to claim half the value of the San Jose cargo," Mr Rengifo, a maritime law expert, told AFP.

The tribunal's decision came after Bogota's recent rejection of a UNESCO convention on undersea cultural heritage, which backed Spain's claims to its sunken galleons around the world.
(snip)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200402/s1044643.htm

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Ah, ha ha ha ha. They've even gotten Republican Indiana Representative, Miami Cuban "exile" donation grabbing, and cause championing Dan Burton sticking his impeachment managing snout into this:

LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE and MANAGING ATTORNEY, SEA SEARCH ARMADA GROUP, Barranquilla, Colombia (1988 to 2000). On behalf of a U.S. investor group I was responsible for more than 12 years for negotiations and managing outside counsels in contract litigation against the Republic of Colombia to sunken treasure troves off valued at approx. $10 billion, Sea Search Armada vs. President of the Republic of Colombia, Superior 3rd Judicial District of Barranquilla. Congressmen Dan Burton described the case as "th largest private claim by American citizens against a foreign state pending in the world. . . . "
(snip)

http://home.earthlink.net/~isidoror/id1.html