Let’s take a look at the gold market. Former Goldman Sachs trader Andrew Maguire, have come up with facts and figures, supporting the hypothesis of a wide conspiracy to suppress the prices of gold and silver. For several years, well known traders and investors like Eric Sprott and John Sinclair have been trying to draw the press’ attention to this problem. According to the latest calculations made by Eric Sprott, it is likely that the US Federal Reserve has almost no physical gold available, so its ability to continue suppressing the gold prices is diminished. If this is true, the Cyprus crisis is a boon to the market manipulators.

Russia 24, the Russian state news channel, reports that under the current plan that is being discussed by the Cypriot parliament, the Central Bank of Cyprus will sell its gold reserves in order to cover a part of the 5.86 billion euros demanded by the Eurogroup. Other sources of financing the country’s “contribution” include such outrageous measures as a special levy on bank accounts and the expropriation of the money held by the Cypriot pension system, so everyone’s attention is diverted from the sale of gold. The gold reserves of Cyprus stand at 13.9 tons. While not a big amount in itself, these reserves represent “physical gold” not “paper gold” which makes it very valuable from a market manipulation perspective. If the central banks and financial institutions that are suppressing the gold prices are running short on “physical gold”, then each ounce of real, assailed, not rehypothecated gold is priceless.

Edit: @FissionSurplus they don't want to sell the gold, they are being forced to sell it, being it the last resort for a bail.