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More than 900 People Died in Jonestown. Guyana Wants to Turn it Into a Tourist Attraction
AP News ^ | December 7, 2024 | Bert Wilkinson Danica Coto

Posted on 12/09/2024 11:56:20 AM PST by nickcarraway

Guyana is revisiting a dark history nearly half a century after U.S. 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 U.S. 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: brazil; guyana; jimjones; jonestown; nicolasmaduro; venezuela

1 posted on 12/09/2024 11:56:20 AM PST by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Don’t they have any beaches or anything? Surely anything would be a better tourist attraction than such a sad site.


2 posted on 12/09/2024 11:58:04 AM PST by EnderWiggin1970
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To: nickcarraway

They should call it a communist paradise. Jim Jones was a lifelong communist, and founded the People’s Temple after he became an atheist.


3 posted on 12/09/2024 11:59:08 AM PST by Telepathic Intruder
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To: nickcarraway
At the Jonestown site should be a giant market talking about Jim Jones' connections to Dims Willie Brown, Jerry Brown, and Harvey Milk.

No shocker, but pedo Harvey Milk wrote President Carter to ask him to intervene in a child custody battle on Jones' behalf. A couple left the cult, but somehow Jones had the kid on his compound and wasn't giving him up.

4 posted on 12/09/2024 12:05:15 PM PST by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: EnderWiggin1970

People will go there in droves. I remember when the stairs that the catholic priest fell down in Georgetown was revealed. I lived near there. People were walking up and down them.


5 posted on 12/09/2024 12:05:16 PM PST by albie (U)
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To: nickcarraway

Yes, it’s morbid, some might even call it ghoulish, but Hey,
don’t we still have re-enactment shows in reference to Gettysburg?

**Just this year, July 6 and 7th, gunpowder filled the air during the Reenactment that took place at The Historic Daniel Lady Farm in Gettyburg, Pennsylvania


6 posted on 12/09/2024 12:07:18 PM PST by lee martell
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To: nickcarraway

Whp will have the kool aid concession?


7 posted on 12/09/2024 12:10:42 PM PST by MortMan (Charter member of AAAAA - American Association Against Alliteration Abuse)
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To: MortMan

Sadly, no Kool aid.

Everyone in that demographic has died off.


8 posted on 12/09/2024 12:13:51 PM PST by Bratch
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To: nickcarraway

Da fuq???


9 posted on 12/09/2024 12:14:29 PM PST by clee1 (We use 43 muscles to frown, 17 to smile, and 2 to pull a trigger. I'm lazy and don't wish to smile.)
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To: nickcarraway

any worse that the Vietnamese turning war time tunnels and pungi traps into walking tours?...be careful where you step!


10 posted on 12/09/2024 12:20:03 PM PST by The Louiswu (Pray for Peace in the world.)
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To: nickcarraway

Pretty sick, but not surprising, for this world.

The way the world is headed, I expect a repeat - only this time, it will be everyone, with 900 left.


11 posted on 12/09/2024 12:43:40 PM PST by Empire_of_Liberty
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To: nickcarraway

Like Civil War battlefields.


12 posted on 12/09/2024 12:57:18 PM PST by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again," )
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To: nickcarraway
Was Jonestown a CIA Medical Experiment?

The book discloses how Nazis were in the CIA’s start. Chapter 6 on the “H File” is one of the most fascinating things I’ve read.

The book shared how Jonestown kept Venezuela from taking over disputed territory, so that may be a good thing.

Despite weekly medical exams, the Jonestown medical records “disappeared.”

13 posted on 12/09/2024 1:33:18 PM PST by The Truth Will Make You Free ( )
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To: nickcarraway

Jim Jones. Democrat party hero...


14 posted on 12/09/2024 1:36:19 PM PST by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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To: nickcarraway

We moved to SF and had to drive past the People’s Temple every day going to work. It felt creepy even from the street, the very definition of “bad vibes”.
That was about two months before they moved to Jonestown and drank the Kool Aid.

It’s still a mystery to me why anyone would be that stupid. But “drinking the Kool Aid” remains an apt definition for idiots following an evil leader. Kamalala voters, for example.


15 posted on 12/09/2024 2:06:21 PM PST by Veto! (Kamalala Sucks Rocks)
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To: nickcarraway
In 1978, a group of former Temple members and concerned relatives of current members convinced U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan, a Democrat of California, to travel to Jonestown and investigate the settlement. On November 17, 1978, Ryan arrived in Jonestown with a group of journalists and other observers. At first the visit went well, but the next day, as Ryan’s delegation was about to leave, several Jonestown residents approached the group and asked them for passage out of Guyana. Jones became distressed at the defection of his followers, and one of Jones’ lieutenants attacked Ryan with a knife. The congressman escaped from the incident unharmed, but Jones then ordered Ryan and his companions ambushed and killed at the airstrip as they attempted to leave. The congressman and four others were murdered as they boarded their charter planes.

Back in Jonestown, Jones commanded everyone to gather in the main pavilion and commit what he termed a “revolutionary act.” The youngest members of the Peoples Temple were the first to die, as parents and nurses used syringes to drop a potent mix of cyanide, sedatives and powdered fruit juice into children’s throats. Adults then lined up to drink the poison-laced concoction while armed guards surrounded the pavilion.

When Guyanese officials arrived at the Jonestown compound the next day, they found it carpeted with hundreds of bodies. Many people had perished with their arms around each other. A few residents managed to escape into the jungle as the suicides took place, while at least several dozen more Peoples Temple members, including several of Jones’ sons, survived because they were in another part of Guyana at the time.

Mass suicide at Jonestown

16 posted on 12/09/2024 9:07:37 PM PST by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 /!i!! &@$%&*(@ -)
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To: Tell It Right

Chapter 5 here is quite an interesting read

https://crimelibrary.org/notorious_murders/mass/jonestown/connections_5.html


17 posted on 12/09/2024 9:36:52 PM PST by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 /!i!! &@$%&*(@ -)
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To: logi_cal869

Thanks. I didn’t know about any of that. Not the CIA, nor Jones moving to Brazil for a while, nor about gunshots in the back at Jonestown.


18 posted on 12/10/2024 4:03:30 AM PST by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: Tell It Right

Honestly, until I saw this posted...

...neither did I.

I’m a writer and sort of a dog with a bone. A research hound.

When I read the post, I realized that I was too young when this happened to have absorbed any details. But the irony is that I had to dig for about 20 minutes before finding the 2nd source.

There’s a LOT more if you dig, particularly from the original, official reports.


19 posted on 12/10/2024 5:32:00 AM PST by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 /!i!! &@$%&*(@ -)
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