Jonestown Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
- Alternate uses: See Jonestown (disambiguation)
| Table of contents |
|
2 Life in Jonestown 3 Shootout 4 Mass Suicide 5 CIA Involvement? 6 See also 7 Bibliography 8 External links |
The Beginning of Jonestown
Jim Jones' the People's Temple was formed in Indianapolis, Indiana during the late 1950s and moved subsequently to San Francisco, California.
After several scandals and investigations in San Francisco, Jones decided that by creating a utopian community in Guyana, he could further cement his absolute power over his members far away from the intervention of US authorities or worried members' relatives. In 1974, he leased 300 acres (1.21 km²) of land from the Guyanan government and started the construction of Jonestown. He moved himself and his most devoted followers there.
Many of the People's Temple members believed that Guyana would be, as Jones promised, a paradise. Instead, everyone (including children) ended up raising food and animals for the "People's Temple Agricultural Project" six days a week from seven in the morning to six in the evening, often when the temperature was as hot as 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius).
Meals for the members consisted of nothing more than rice and beans while Jones ate meat and other refrigerated foods seperated from the others. Medical problems such as severe diarrhoea and high fevers struck half the community in February 1978.
Members considered to be serious disciplinary problems were imprisoned in a 6 by 4 by 3 foot (2 by 1.2 by 1 m) plywood box. Members who attempted to run away also had their ankles fitted with balls and chains. Armed guards patrolled the compound day and night to ensure that Jones' orders were followed.
Children, surrendered to communal care, were made to address Jones as "Dad" and were only allowed to see their parents briefly at night.
Local Guyanese, including a police official, related horror stories about harsh beatings and a "torture hole," a well into which Jones had "misbehaving" children thrown in the middle of the night. Jones had terrifed the children by making them believe that there was a monster living at the bottom of the well, where in fact it was Jones' henchman who pulled and tugged their legs as they descended into the well.
Older children were said to have been tied naked and electrical shocks would be administered to their genitalia. Guyanese officials had attempted to investigate these allegations but they were denied entry to the compound.
The mass suicides that were to make Jonestown notorious were practiced during so called white nights. In an affidavit defector Deborah Layton wrote that during one of those white nights people were told that they would die. [1]
While Jones greeted the Ryan party warmly and showed them the compound, something was clearly amiss. Ryan and his party of 18 journalists and photographers discovered a fearful, depressed group of followers. Some members were too afraid to speak, some were angry and saw the Congressman's visit as trouble brought in from outside, and others complained of the dire situation within the compound.
When Jones learned about some of his followers' reactions and that some of them wished to leave, he was angry and believed that those who wanted to leave the community would "lie" and destroy Jonestown. Jones and many other members of the People's Temple saw themselves as a family that had the right and the duty to stay together. Like most families they felt that they had the duty to defend itself against people who tried to take away its members.
Ryan had intended to investigate further when Don Sly, a member of the Temple acting under Jones' orders, attacked the congressman with a knife. Although he wasn't hurt in the attack, he realised that the visiting party and the defectors were in danger. Ryan's party and 16 ex-Temple members left Jonestown and reached the nearby Port Kaituma airstrip at 4:30pm, where they planned to use two planes, a six-passenger Cessna and a twin-engine Otter, to fly to Georgetown, the capital of Guyana.
Before the Cessna took off, one of the "defectors" took out a gun and started shooting at the passengers. The "defector" was actually Larry Layton, a senior general at the Temple and loyal to Jones. He killed two people, including defector Monica Bagby. Jones' armed guards, or "Red Brigade," then emerged, pulled up within 30 feet of the Otter, and proceeded to open fire. Leo Ryan, three journalists, and one 18-year-old Jonestown defector were killed in the five minute shooting, which was captured on camera. Camera operator Robert Brown was among the dead while Jackie Speier was injured. The Cessna was able to take off and fly to Georgetown, leaving behind the gunfire-damaged Otter. They carried with them a filmed footage of the surprise attack, a first glimpse of Jonestown for the outside world.
Two metal buckets of grape Flavor Aid laced with Valium and cyanide were brought into the assembly hall and the mixture was dispensed in small paper cups. Babies and children were the first ones to ingest the mixture as it was squirted into their throats with a syringe. The elderly followed, and then the adults. Many blindly drank it even after watching their children die horribly. The rest had the mixture poured down their throats after resisting drinking.
Some sources ([1], [1]) claim that some bodies bore the marks of hypodermic needles with which the poison was injected into unwilling victims, although the numbers vary widely. The precise circumstances are the focus of a number of conspiracy theories (see, for example, [1]).
Those who tried to hide were tracked down and killed by Jones' armed guards but some survivors did manage to escape into the jungle.
Jones himself was killed by a gunshot to his head. Whether the trigger was pulled by himself or by a disgruntled member wasn't clear.
Hours after news of the mass suicide got out, local authorities found 913 of the 1,110 inhabitants dead, including 276 children. One of the survivors, Laura Johnston Kohl, escaped the mass suicide as she was away from Jonestown at that time.
Jonestown itself became a "ghost town" after 1978 and was mostly destroyed by a fire in the mid-1980s, after which the ruins were left to decay; as of 2004 there is little to mark the site of one of the most notorious mass suicides in history.
Another rumour is that the CIA had used this opportunity to assassinate Leo Ryan, as he was was a harsh critic of the CIA and had authored the Hughes-Ryan Amendment, which if passed would have required the CIA to report its planned covert missions to Congress for approval. This may seem far-fetched, as almost a thousand people had to be killed just for the cover-up of a single person.
In 1980, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence announced that there was no evidence of CIA involvement at Jonestown. Nevertheless, conspiracy theories and rumours still persist.
This is an Article on Jonestown. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Jonestown Life in Jonestown
"The moment I got off that plane I knew something was wrong," said a former member Richard Clark, who ran away when he arrived in Guyana.Shootout
On November 18, 1978, Congressman Leo Ryan, a Democrat from San Francisco, California, flew to Guyana along with a team of media representatives and members of Concerned Relatives to investigate charges of massive social security fraud and the siphoning of millions of dollars from the accounts of wealthy members. Relatives of the members alleged that human rights were being violated daily, people were being held against their free will, and (most disturbingly) rehearsals of mass suicide were being conducted.Mass Suicide
Shortly after the shootings, Jones decided to start the mass suicide, as he knew that the Guyanese Defence Force would be coming for him once they got word of the shootout at the airstrip.CIA Involvement?
Rumour had spread that the Jones himself was a CIA agent and that Jonestown was a mind-controlling experiment gone wrong. The drugs found at the premises include Quaaludes, Valium, morphine, Demerol, chloral hydrate and thallium.See also
Bibliography
External links