Posted on 12/08/2024 2:48:27 PM PST by Libloather
GEORGETOWN, Guyana — Guyana is revisiting a dark history nearly half a century after US Rev. Jim Jones and more than 900 of his followers died in the rural interior of the South American country.
It was the largest suicide-murder in recent history, and a government-backed tour operator wants to open the former commune now shrouded by lush vegetation to visitors, a proposal that is reopening old wounds, with critics saying it would disrespect victims and dig up a sordid past.
Jordan Vilchez, who grew up in California and was moved into the Peoples Temple commune at age 14, told The Associated Press in a phone interview from the US that she has mixed feelings about the tour.
She was in Guyana’s capital the day Jones ordered hundreds of his followers to drink a poisoned grape-flavored drink that was given to children first. Her two sisters and two nephews were among the victims.
“I just missed dying by one day,” she recalled.
Vilchez, 67, said Guyana has every right to profit from any plans related to Jonestown.
“Then on the other hand, I just feel like any situation where people were manipulated into their deaths should be treated with respect,” she said.
Vilchez added that she hopes the tour operator would provide context and explain why so many people went to Guyana trusting they would find a better life.
The tour would ferry visitors to the far-flung village of Port Kaituma nestled in the lush jungles of northern Guyana. It’s a trip available only by boat, helicopter or plane; rivers instead of roads connect Guyana’s interior. Once there, it’s another six miles via a rough and overgrown dirt trail to the abandoned commune and former agricultural settlement.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Well Played!
Jones used his Peoples Temple slaves to get out the vote for the Democrats in the Bay Area. He was perhaps the most important cog in the Dem machine, and they all came to kiss his ring, from Jerry Brown to Harvey Milk.
Historical sights that involve bloody events are quite common, around the entire world.
IIRC, I paid a fee to enter Dachau and Flossenburg.
One of the more endearing sights was while stuck in a rare traffic jam over Christmas, a guy on motor cycle was killed by a another car on a side street. Within seconds, someone ran and determined he was dead, and the mob striped him of all his clothing leaving him naked and bleeding to death; they did this in about 30-45 seconds. My teenaged boys visiting were quite amused by the spectacle. On numerous ocassions we observed someone on a bike ride by and snatch a phone form peoeple talking. In the Supermarkets, we never found canned goods less than 9 months expired but were assured by the Embassy they were safe after testing. Twice we went to Survival Market or the other big one, and saw the owners pouring Clorox out of the bottle and then watering it down and putting it back on the shelf.
How was my stay. My wife is still hobbled after numerous surveries after a cricket bat attack, and I had a spinal fusion after I took him down and we beat him with a rock crippling him - no embassy report filed though so I suspect the mission chief sicked his dog on me and I took him down.
When you can’t trust the American’s you know it’s bad.
My kids spend 13 of 18 years of their lifes overseas. They still talk about Guyana as the armpit of the earth. In my 22 years the only poverty I saw on par with Guyana was in the jungles of Panama on patrol.
My stay was like being a military recon mission. Head on a swivel checking my 6 at every moment. Even leaving the Embassy once out the gate it heads up.
Sounds like it needs to merge with Haiti.
Of the three, I’ve only been to Jamaica. I count it as two trips, since the visit was both my first and last time there. And that was to the good tourist side of the island. I’ve heard Kingston is much worse.
On the other hand, I’ve only heard nice things about Belize.
I've been to Dachau and Buchenwald. Passed on a trip to Auschwitz to get a drive by look at the Warsaw steel mill where Solidarity had their big strike. That was back in the mid-80s (the visit, not the strike).
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