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756 lines
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Plaintext
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The following I am fowarding because it brings some things into light I
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didn't know before, and, I haven't seen much circulating about it. I have
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just come from verifying some of the references listed in the following
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document. Any other info concerning this please send it to me.
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Thanx, Danny
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----
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The following article is taken from New Dawn magazine - a
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magazine exposing consensus reality and publishing suppressed
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information. 6 issue subscription for US$30 can be obtained from:
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GPO Box 3126FF, Melbourne, 3001, AUSTRALIA.
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JONESTOWN, THE CIA AND MIND CONTROL
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"When 912 followers of Jim Jones committed suicide in Guyana 15
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years ago, people said it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing and
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never could happen again, but it has happened in Waco," states
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Boston "cult expert" John Gillespie.
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Until the Waco tragedy, self-proclaimed "cult experts" and the
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media routinely mentioned the ominous name of "Jonestown" in just
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about every story on the latest "religious cult" or community.
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But despite all the references, the reality of Jonestown and the
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reasons behind the bizarre events remain a mystery. The details
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have faded from memory for most of us since November 18, 1978,
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but not the outlines. Think back a moment and youll remember...
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You Know the Official Version...
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A fanatic religious leader in California led a multiracial
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community into the jungles of remote Guyana to establish a
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socialist utopia. The Peoples Temple, his church, was in the
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heart of San Francisco and drew poor people, social activists,
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Black and Hispanics, young and old. The message was racial
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harmony and justice, and a criticism of the hypocrisy of the
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world around his followers.
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The Temple rose in a vacuum of leadership at the end of an era.
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The political confrontations of the 1960s were almost over, and
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alternative religious movements and "personal transformation"
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were on the rise. Those who had preached a similar message on the
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political soap box were gone, burnt out, discredited, or dead.
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The counterculture had apparently degenerated into drugs and
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violence. Charlie Manson was the only visible image of the
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period. Suddenly, religion seemed to offer a last hope.
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Even before they left for the Jonestown site, the Peoples Temple
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members were subjects of scandalous attacks in the media. A
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veritable persecution campaign had been launched in the United
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States against Rev. Jim Jones and other members of the
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organisation. Fleeing the U.S., over one thousand members
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emigrated to Guyana in South America. Establishing "Jonestown" as
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a successful and prosperous community, these American families
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defied poverty and lack of rights that were their lot back home.
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This act of political protest, of a kind never known in the
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United States before, angered certain powerful elements in the
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U.S. Establishment. But accusations continued to be made about
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Jones, and these soon came to the attention of Congressional
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members like Leo Ryan. Ryan decided to go the Guyana and
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investigate the situation for himself. The nightmare began.
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Isolated on the tiny airstrip at Fort Kaituma, Ryan and several
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reporters in his group were murdered. Then came the almost
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unbelievable "White Night," a mass suicide pact of the Jonestown
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camp. A community made up mostly of Blacks and women drank
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cyanide from paper cups of Kool Aid, adults and children alike
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died and fell around the main pavilion. Jones himself was shot in
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the head, an apparent suicide. For days, the body count mounted,
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from 400 to nearly 1,000. The bodies were flown to the United
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States and later cremated or buried in mass graves.
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Pete Hammill called the corpses "all the loose change of the
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sixties." The effect was electric. Any alternative to the current
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system was seen as futile, if not deadly. Protest only led to
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police riots and political assassination. Alternative life styles
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led to drugs, "creepy crawly" communes and violent murders. And
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religious experiments led to cults and suicide. Social utopias
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were dreams that turned into nightmares. The television urged us
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to go back to "The Happy Days" of the apolitical 50s. The message
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was, get a job, and go back to the local church your grandparents
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attended. The unyielding nuclear threat generated only nihilism
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and hopelessness. There was no answer but death, no exit from the
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grisly future. The new ethic was personal success, aerobics,
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material consumption, a return to "American values"; and the
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"moral majority"; White, Christian world. The official message
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was clear.
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Suppose It Didnt Happen That Way...
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The headlines of the day of the massacre read, "CULT DIES IN
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SOUTH AMERICAN JUNGLE: 400 Die in Mass Suicide, 700 Flee into
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Jungle." By all accounts in the press, as well as Peoples Temple
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statements, there were at least 1,100 people at Jonestown. There
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were 809 adult passports found there, and reports of 300 children
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(276 found among the dead, and 210 never identified). The
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headline figures from the first day add to the same number, 1,
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100. The original body count done by the Guyanese was 408. The
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final count, given almost a week later by American military
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authorities was 913. A total of 16 survivors were reported to
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have returned to the U.S. Where were the others? At their first
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press conference, the Americans claimed that the Guyanese "could
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not count". These local people had carried out the gruesome job
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of counting the bodies, and later assisted American troops in the
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process of poking holes in the flesh lest they explode from the
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gasses of decay. Then the Americans propose d another theory -
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they had missed seeing a pile of bodies at the back of the
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pavilion. The structure was the size of a small house, and they
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had been at the scene for days. Finally, we were given the
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official reason for the discrepancy - bodies had fallen on top of
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other bodies, adults covering children.
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It was a simple, if morbid arithmetic that led to the first
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suspicions. The 408 bodies discovered at first count would have
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to be able to cover 505 bodies for a total of 913. In addition,
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those who first worked on the bodies would have been unlikely to
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miss bodies lying beneath each other since each body had to be
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punctured. Eighty-two of the bodies first found were those of
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children, reducing the number that could have been hidden below
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others. A search of nearly 150 photographs, aerial and closeup,
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fails to show even one body lying under another, much less 500.
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It seemed the first reports were true, 400 had died, and 700 had
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fled to the jungle. The American authorities claimed to have
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searched for people who had escaped, but found no evidence of
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any in the surrounding area. At least a hundred Guyanese troops
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were among the first to arrive, and they were ordered to search
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the jungle for survivors. In the area, at the same time, British
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Black Watch troops were on "training exercises", nearly 600 of
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their best-trained commandos. Soon, American Green Berets were
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on site as well. The presence of these soldiers, specially
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trained in covert killing operations, may explain the increasing
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numbers of bodies that appeared.
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Most of the photographs show the bodies in neat rows, face down.
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There are few exceptions. Close shots indicate drag marks, as
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though the bodies were positioned by someone after death. Is it
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possible that the 700 who fled were rounded up by these troops,
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brought back to Jonestown and added to the body count?
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If so, the bodies would indicate the cause of death. A new word
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was coined by the media, "suicide-murder". But which was it?
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Autopsies and forensic science are a developing art. The
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detectives of death use a variety of scientific methods and clues
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to determine how people die, when they expire, and the specific
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cause of death. Dr. Mootoo, the top Guyanese pathologist, was at
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Jonestown within hours after the massacre. Refused the assistance
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of U.S. pathologists, he accompanied the teams that counted the
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dead, examined the bodies, and worked to identify the deceased.
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While the American press screamed about the "Kool-Aid Suicides",
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Dr. Mootoo was reaching a much different opinion.
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There are certain signs that show the types of poisons that lead
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to the end of life. Cyanide blocks the central nervous system.
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Even the "involuntary" function like breathing and heartbeat get
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mixed neural signals. It is a painful death, breath coming in
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spurts. The other muscles spasm, limbs twist and contort. The
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facial muscles draw back into a deadly grin, called "cyanide
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rictus". All these telling signs were absent in the Jonestown
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dead. Limbs were limp and relaxed, and the few visible faces
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showed no sign of distortion.
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Instead, Dr. Mootoo found fresh needle marks at the back of the
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left shoulder blades of 70-80% of the victims. Others had been
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shot or strangled. One survivor reported that those who resisted
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were forced by armed guards. The gun that reportedly shot Jim
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Jones was lying nearly 200 feet from his body, not a likely
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suicide weapon. As Chief Medical Examiner, his testimony to the
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Guyanese grand jury investigating Jonestown led to their
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conclusion that all but three of the people were murdered by
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"persons unknown". Only two had committed suicide they said.
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Several pictures show the gunshot wounds on the bodies as well.
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The U.S. Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Schuler, said, "No autopsies
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are needed. The cause of death is not an issue here." The
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forensic doctors who later did autopsies at Dover, Delaware, were
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never made aware of Dr. Mootoos findings.
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There are other indications that the Guyanese government
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participated with American authorities in a cover-up of the real
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story, despite their own findings. One good example was Guyanese
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Police Chief Lloyd Barker, who interfered with investigations,
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helped "recover" $2.5 million for the Guyanese government, and
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was often the first to officially announce the cover stories
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relating to suicide, body counts and survivors. Among the first
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to the scene were the wife of Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes
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Burnham, and his Deputy Prime Minister, Ptolemy Reid. They
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returned from the massacre site with nearly one million dollars
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in cash, gold and jewellery taken from the buildings and from
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the dead. Inexplicably, one of Burnhams political party
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secretaries had visited the site of the massacre only hours
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before it occurred. When Shirley Field Ridley, Guyanese Minister
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of Information announced the change in the body count to the
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shocked Guyanese parliament, she refused to answer any further q
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uestions. Other representatives began to point a finger of shame
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at Ridley and the Burnham government, and the local press dubbed
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the scandal "Templegate", and accused them of taking a ghoulish
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payoff.
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Perhaps, more significantly, the Americans brought in 16 huge C-
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131 cargo planes, but claimed they could only carry 36 caskets in
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each one. These aircraft can carry tanks, trucks, troops, and
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ammunition all in one load. At the scene, bodies were stripped of
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identification, including the medical wrist tags visible in many
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early photos. Dust off operations during Vietnam clearly
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demonstrated that the military is capable of moving hundreds of
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bodies in a short period. Instead, they took nearly a week to
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bring back the Jonestown dead, bringing in the majority at the
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end of the period. The corpses, rotting in the heat, made autopsy
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impossible. At one point, the remains of 183 people arrived in 83
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caskets. Although the Guyanese had identified 174 bodies at the
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site, only 17 (later 46) were tentatively identified at the
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massive military mortuary in Dover, Delaware.
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Isolated there, hundreds of miles from their families who might
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have visited the bodies at a similar mortuary in Oakland that
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was used during Vietnam, many of the dead were eventually
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cremated. Press was excluded, and even family members had
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difficulty getting access to the remains. Officials in New Jersey
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began to complain that state coroners were excluded, and that the
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military coroners appointed were illegally performing cremations.
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One of the top forensic body identification experts was denied
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repeated requests to assist. In December, the President of the
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National Association of Medical Examiners complained in an open
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letter to the U.S. military that they "badly botched" procedures.
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As noted, these military doctors were unaware of Dr. Mootoos
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conclusions. Several civilian pathology experts said they
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"shuddered at the ineptness", of the military, and that their
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autopsy method was "doing it backwards". But in official
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statements, the U.S. attempted to discredit the Guyanese grand
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jury findings, saying they had uncovered "few facts".
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Guyanese troops and police, who had arrived with American Embassy
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official Richard Dwyer, also failed to defend Congressman Leo
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Ryan and others who came to Guyana with him when they were shot
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down in cold blood at the Port Kaituma airstrip, even though the
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troops were nearby with machine guns at the ready. Although
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Temple member Larry Layton was charged with the murders of
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Congressman Ryan, Temple defector Patricia Parks, and press
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reporters Greg Robinson, Don Harris and Bob Brown, he was not in
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position to shoot them. Blocked from boarding Ryans twin engine
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Otter, he had entered another plane nearby. Once inside, he
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pulled out a gun and wounded two Temple followers, before being
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disarmed. [Later, Laytons own father called him "a robot" and
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relatives described how he was in a "posthypnotic trance".]
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The others were clearly killed by armed men who descended from a
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tractor trailer at the scene, after opening fire. Witnesses
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described them as "zombies," walking mechanically, without
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emotion, and "looking through you, not at you" as they murdered.
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Only certain people, like Ryans aide Jackie Speier, were not
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harmed further, but the killers made sure that Ryan and the
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newsmen were dead. In some cases they shot people, already
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wounded, directly in the head.
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At the Jonestown site, survivors described how a siren began to
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scream. The men rushed to the storeroom where they had hunting
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rifles and cross-bows. Meanwhile bursts of submachine-gun fire
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could be heard from the edge of Jonestown as "mercenaries" shot
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defenceless people. Agent provocateurs who had been infiltrated
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into Jonestown created panic in order to allow the trained and
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programmed killers, like the "zombies" who killed Ryan, to go
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about their murderous business.
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A special squad broke through to Jim Jones and killed him. After
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that the mass extermination of people began. When the last shots
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were fired, there were still several hundred left alive in the
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compound, mostly women, children and the elderly. They were
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assembled near the central pavilion so as to receive a
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"sedative". The "cocktail" took effect instantly as the first
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victims began to collapse and die. Now everybody understood the
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nature of the brew offered by the murderers. Some people began to
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resist taking the poison. They were shot at point blank range.
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Others had poison poured down their throat by force. The
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murderers also used ampule injectors. People were forced to lie
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on the ground with their faces down, and were then injected into
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their upper arms right through their clothes, an unlikely spot
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for a suicide shot. Most of those who had fled into the jungle
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were rounded up and killed. One survivor clearly heard a group of
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people cheering, 45 minutes after the massacre.
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Back in California, Peoples Temple members openly admitted that
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they feared they were targeted by a intelligence agency "hit
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squad", and the Temple was surrounded for some time by local
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police forces.
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Survivors included Mark Lane and Charles Garry, lawyers for
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Peoples Temple who managed to escape the massacre. In addition
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to the 16 who officially returned with the Ryan party, others
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managed to reach Georgetown and come back home. However, many of
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these people were later murdered. Jeannie and Al Mills, who
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intended to write a book about Jonestown, were murdered at home,
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bound and shot. Evidence indicates a connection between the
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Jonestown operation and the murders of Mayor Moscone and Harvey
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Milk by police agent Dan White. Moscone, a friend of Rev. Jones,
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was killed in his office a few days after the Guyana tragedy,
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thus preventing him from realising his plan to make a press
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statement on the true reasons behind the destruction of Jim
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Jones and his community. Another Jonestown survivor was shot
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near his home in Detroit by unidentified killers. Yet another
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was involved in a mass murder of school children in Los Angeles.
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Who Was Jim Jones?
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In order to understand the strange events surrounding Jonestown,
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we must begin with a history of the people involved. The official
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story of a "suicide cult" led by a religious fanatic adored by
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his idealistic followers, doesnt make sense in light of the
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evidence of murders, armed killers and autopsy cover-ups.
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If it happened the way we were told, there should be no reason to
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try to hide the facts from the public, and full investigation
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into the deaths at Jonestown, and the murder of Leo Ryan would
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have been welcomed. What did happen is something else instead.
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Jim Jones grew up in the grinding poverty of the Great Depression
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in the rural town of Lynn, southern Indiana. His friends found
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him a little strange as he was interested in preaching the Bible
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and in social justice issues. In the early 1950s, Jones graduated
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from Butler University and was ordained by a Christian
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denomination in Indianapolis. It was during this period that he
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met and married his lifelong mate, Marceline. He also had a small
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business to support his Christian ministry, selling monkeys,
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purchased from the research department at Indiana State
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University in Bloomington.
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A Charismatic evangelist and faith healer, Pastor Jones held
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revival tent meetings in Indiana. With his wife, Marceline, he
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adopted many children of different races. Because of his strong
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convictions and social activism, he and his family were the
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targets of intense harassment and racially-motivated violence.
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Seeking an atmosphere that would perhaps be more receptive to his
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outspoken work, Jim Jones moved to California and established the
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first Peoples Temple in Ukiah in 1965. There, despite continued
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harassment, Peoples Temple flourished and grew to thousands of
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members. Branches of the organisation were opened in several
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cities, and the work of rehabilitating drug addicts, finding
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jobs, and homes for destitute people, providing services for
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youth and the elderly went on in each area. Despite all this,
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Jones kept up a gruelling schedule of evangelistic rallies,
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speaking five or six times a week to thousands of people, mostly
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urban ghetto-dwellers, all across the state. Periodically he
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would journey across the United States holding revival meetings
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in a number of cities.
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Not a meeting went by that Rev. Jones did not integrate his
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Charismatic, revival gospel with a comprehensive expose of the
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smug corruption, blatant hypocrisy, and contradictions of the
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American system. He was scathing in his denunciation of the
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military-industrial complex, corporate greed, profiteering, the
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politics of neglect and genocide, and a host of other abuses
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both within the U.S. and around the world. He established a hard-
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hitting newspaper Peoples Forum that exposed U.S. corruption
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within, and U.S. imperialism without - and distributed each
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issue free to over half a million people. The foundation
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scripture of his ministry was Christs admonition recorded in
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"Matthew" chapter 25, verses 35-40.
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The Peoples Temple newspaper Peoples Forum revealed Pastor Jones
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|
perspective as well as some of his powerful enemies. An October,
|
||
|
1977 column titled "For the Ambitious, Curious, and Concerned"
|
||
|
provides commentary on some of the topics the Establishment press
|
||
|
prefers to pass over in silence. Among the questions raised here
|
||
|
are the following:
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
"The Rockefeller brothers: How they got their fortunes and
|
||
|
increase them
|
||
|
daily. Their influence over U.S. policy. How does Henry
|
||
|
Kissinger, e.g.
|
||
|
hop right over from being Secretary of State to become a
|
||
|
Board member of
|
||
|
the Chase Manhattan Bank."
|
||
|
|
||
|
"The multinational corporations: By what network do they
|
||
|
influence
|
||
|
governmental decisions? Is it possible for any major
|
||
|
decisions to be made
|
||
|
independently of the corporate structure?"
|
||
|
|
||
|
Many questions are related to the deteriorating conditions at
|
||
|
home:
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
"Schools: Why do they cost more and more and teach less and
|
||
|
less? Why are
|
||
|
colleges in deep financial trouble? What kind of job market
|
||
|
are students
|
||
|
facing and why?"
|
||
|
|
||
|
"Prisons: Whats behind the push to build more of them? What
|
||
|
is the extent
|
||
|
of medical experimentation on prisoners? Psychosurgery?"
|
||
|
|
||
|
"Medical care:....Is there any way to reverse the gigantic
|
||
|
machinery
|
||
|
which cuts anyone but the wealthy off from extended medical
|
||
|
care? Who
|
||
|
controls the nursing home circuits?"
|
||
|
|
||
|
"Environmental controls: How widespread is: pollution? Lack
|
||
|
of safety
|
||
|
standards? Poisonous chemicals in food and other products?"
|
||
|
|
||
|
Thus, it was by no means a "sect of religious fanatics advocating
|
||
|
the cult of suicide" who published the newspaper Peoples Forum.
|
||
|
There can be no doubt that the newspaper served as a vehicle for
|
||
|
radical Christianity, as a mouthpiece of those who fought against
|
||
|
the dictatorship of the monopolies and for freedom. As one letter
|
||
|
to the Editor frankly stated, "The only crime Jim Jones is guilty
|
||
|
of is bringing the poor together from various religious, racial,
|
||
|
and ethnic backgrounds."
|
||
|
|
||
|
Early Converts
|
||
|
|
||
|
Many professional people from stable family backgrounds were
|
||
|
converted to Joness dynamic vision. During this time Timothy
|
||
|
Stoen, a Stanford graduate and member of the city D.As office,
|
||
|
the Layton family, Terri Buford and other important members
|
||
|
joined the Temple. Bufords father was a Commander at the
|
||
|
Philadelphia Navy Base for years. Larry Schact, later to become
|
||
|
Jonestown medical superintendent, stated Jim Jones got him off
|
||
|
drugs and into medical school during this period. George Blakey
|
||
|
was from a wealthy, British family. He donated $60,000 to pay the
|
||
|
lease on the 27,000-acre Guyana site in 1974. Lisa Phillips
|
||
|
Layton had come to the U.S. from a rich Hamburg banking family in
|
||
|
Germany. Many of the top lieutenants around Jones were from
|
||
|
wealthy, educated backgrounds.
|
||
|
|
||
|
For a number of years Stoen worked in close cooperation with
|
||
|
Jones whom he followed to Guyana as the communitys legal adviser.
|
||
|
It subsequently turned out that since his years at college Stoen
|
||
|
had been a CIA agent and spent some time in West Germany on a CIA
|
||
|
mission. In 1977, Stoens link to the CIA was exposed and he was
|
||
|
expelled from the Jonestown community. Under instructions from
|
||
|
the CIA, the agent provocateur set up and headed the so-called
|
||
|
"Concerned Relatives" organisation. It demanded the liquidation
|
||
|
of Jonestown.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Jonestown survivor, JFK researcher and attorney, Mark Lane,
|
||
|
writes in The Strongest Poison: "I believe Tim Stoen was a CIA
|
||
|
operative, if not from the beginning, then certainly long before
|
||
|
the end. Where was the money coming from to keep him on the
|
||
|
Temples case full time with an office, to hire a private
|
||
|
detective (Mazor), and a prominent San Francisco public relations
|
||
|
firm (Lowery, Russom & Leeper) [a legal firm that fabricated
|
||
|
suits and charges against the Peoples Temple] to work against
|
||
|
the Temple. Where was the money coming from to send relatives
|
||
|
and attorneys to Guyana and put them up in the best hotels while
|
||
|
they did their dirty work? There was too much money behind Tim
|
||
|
Stoen...Stoens announced goal was the destruction of Jim Jones
|
||
|
and the Temple..."
|
||
|
|
||
|
This period of rapid growth of the Peoples Temple also marked the
|
||
|
end of an important political decade. Nixons election had ushered
|
||
|
in a domestic intelligence war against the movements for peace,
|
||
|
civil rights and social justice. Names like COINTELPRO, CHAOS,
|
||
|
and OPERATION GARDEN PLOT or the HOUSTON PLAN made the news
|
||
|
following in the wake of Watergate revelations. Senator Ervin
|
||
|
called the White House plans against dissenters "fascistic."
|
||
|
These operations involved the highest levels of military and
|
||
|
civilian intelligence and all levels of police agencies in a
|
||
|
full-scale attempt to discredit, disrupt and destroy the
|
||
|
movements that sprang up in the 1960s. There are indications that
|
||
|
these plans, or the mood they created, led to the assassinations
|
||
|
of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, as unacceptable "Black
|
||
|
Messiahs."
|
||
|
|
||
|
One of the architects under then-Governor Reagan in California
|
||
|
was the former Attorney General Edwin Meese. He coordinated
|
||
|
OPERATION GARDEN PLOT for military intelligence and all police
|
||
|
operations and intelligence in a period that was plagued with
|
||
|
violations of civil and constitutional rights. Perhaps you can
|
||
|
recall the police attacks on Peoples Park, the murder of many
|
||
|
Black Panthers and activists, the infiltration of the Free Speech
|
||
|
Movement and anti-war activity, and the experimentation on
|
||
|
prisoners at Vacaville, or the shooting of George Jackson. Meese
|
||
|
later bragged that this activity had damaged or destroyed the
|
||
|
people he called "revolutionaries."
|
||
|
|
||
|
This was also the period in which the CIA and its allies began to
|
||
|
infiltrate the Peoples Temple. Michael Prokes was approached by a
|
||
|
government agent and promised two-hundred dollars a week payment
|
||
|
if he would join the full time staff of the Temple and spy on Jim
|
||
|
Jones. Prokes joined the Temple in October 1972. Mark Lane
|
||
|
relates how, during a visit to Jonestown on November 17, 1978,
|
||
|
only days before the massacre, Mike Prokes confided to him that,
|
||
|
"it would be a mistake for me to underestimate the duplicity and
|
||
|
cleverness of the American intelligence agents. He said, on the
|
||
|
eve of the destruction: 'I wouldnt be surprised if they have
|
||
|
agents infiltrated in here and in San Francisco [Peoples Temple
|
||
|
U.S. head office]'." (The Strongest Poison)
|
||
|
|
||
|
Four months later, on March 13, 1979, Prokes called a press
|
||
|
conference in a California hotel. To the assembled reporters he
|
||
|
made available a forty-two-page statement and then silently rose,
|
||
|
entering the bathroom behind him. He closed the door and shot
|
||
|
himself. He was pronounced dead at a Modesto Hospital three hours
|
||
|
later.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"In both his oral and written statements to the press, he
|
||
|
asserted: 'The truth about Jonestown is being covered up because
|
||
|
our government agencies were involved in its destruction up to
|
||
|
their necks. I am convinced of this because among many other
|
||
|
reasons, I was an informant when I first joined the Peoples
|
||
|
Temple.'
|
||
|
|
||
|
"Prokes attached to that statement a four-page document in which
|
||
|
he detailed his role as a government agent... All of this
|
||
|
information was available to the reporters at the press
|
||
|
conference... Among those Mike mailed his final statement to
|
||
|
were: The New York Times, Newsweek, and Time. They, however, did
|
||
|
not print a word from the statement. Not a single national daily
|
||
|
in the United States, not a single magazine, radio or television
|
||
|
company, not a single news agency made public what Mike Prokes
|
||
|
had written in the last minutes of his life." (The Strongest
|
||
|
Poison)
|
||
|
|
||
|
Shortly before Jonestowns tragic end, the Peoples Temples leaders
|
||
|
launched an open challenge against the U.S. authorities. On
|
||
|
October 4, 1978, The San Francisco Examiner, and the next day The
|
||
|
Sun Reporter announced that the Peoples Temple based in Guyana
|
||
|
were going to file a multi-million-dollar suit against U.S.
|
||
|
federal agencies, including the CIA, the FBI, Treasury
|
||
|
Department, Post Office, and the Internal Revenue Service, within
|
||
|
90 days. The suit would charge, the newspaper said, the agencies
|
||
|
of being involved in a government-inspired plot to destroy
|
||
|
Jonestown. The suit potentially threatened to cause great
|
||
|
embarrassment to the White House, the State Department and the U.
|
||
|
S. intelligence community. When, 45 days after the publication of
|
||
|
the news of the forthcoming suit, the majority of Jonestowns
|
||
|
residents were murdered, the question of the law suit was removed
|
||
|
from the agenda.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Under pressure from influential relatives of some of the members
|
||
|
of the Peoples Temple and responding to the slanders of Rev.
|
||
|
Jones in the press, Congressman Leo Ryan took a personal
|
||
|
interest in Jonestown. Ryan had some years previous fallen out
|
||
|
with the U.S. intelligence community. The CIA was displeased
|
||
|
with him because in 1974 he and Senator Hughes had moved an
|
||
|
amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act which was to limit the
|
||
|
CIAs operations outside the United States. Later CIA operative
|
||
|
Tim Stoen would complain to Ryan about custody of his step son,
|
||
|
who was living with Jones, and urge him to visit the commune.
|
||
|
Against advice of friends and staff members, Ryan decided to take
|
||
|
a team of journalists to Guyana and seek the truth of the
|
||
|
situation. Some feel that Ryans journey there was planned and
|
||
|
expected, and used as a convenient excuse to set up his murder.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The CIA and MK-ULTRA
|
||
|
|
||
|
Significantly, the press and other evidence did indicate the
|
||
|
presence of a senior CIA agent on the scene at the time of the
|
||
|
massacre. This man, Richard Dwyer, was working as Deputy Chief of
|
||
|
Mission for the U.S. Embassy in Guyana. Identified in Whos Who in
|
||
|
the CIA, he has been involved with the agency since 1959. Present
|
||
|
at Jonestown and the airport strip, his accounts were used by the
|
||
|
State Department to confirm the death of Leo Ryan.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Other Embassy personnel, who knew the situation at Jonestown
|
||
|
well, were also connected to intelligence work. U.S. Ambassador
|
||
|
John Burke, who served in the CIA with Dwyer in Thailand, was an
|
||
|
Embassy official described by Philip Agee as working for the CIA
|
||
|
since 1963. Burke tried to stop Ryans investigation. Also at the
|
||
|
Embassy was Chief Consular officer Richard McCoy, who worked for
|
||
|
military intelligence and was "on loan" from the Defense
|
||
|
Department at the time of the massacre. According to a standard
|
||
|
source, "The Embassy in Georgetown housed the Georgetown CIA
|
||
|
station. It now appears that the majority and perhaps all of the
|
||
|
Embassy officials were CIA officers operating under State
|
||
|
Department covers..." Dan Webber, who was sent to the site of the
|
||
|
massacre the day after, was also named as CIA.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The direct orders to cover up the cause of death came from the
|
||
|
top levels of the American government. Zbigniew Brzezinski
|
||
|
delegated to Robert Pastor, and he in turn ordered Lt. Col.
|
||
|
Gordon Sumner to strip the bodies of identity. Pastor was Deputy
|
||
|
Director of the CIA under Reagan. One can only wonder how many
|
||
|
others tied to the Jonestown massacre were similarly promoted.
|
||
|
Almost everywhere you look at Jonestown, U.S. intelligence rears
|
||
|
its ugly head.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"(The) possibility is that Jonestown was a mass mind-control
|
||
|
experiment by the CIA as part of its MK-ULTRA program," declared
|
||
|
Ryans friend and aid, Joseph Holsinger, in response to reports of
|
||
|
the involvement of senior CIA agents in the tragedy. A close
|
||
|
study of Senator Ervins 1974 intelligence report, "Individual
|
||
|
Rights and the Governments Role in Behaviour Modification", shows
|
||
|
that the CIA and military intelligence had certain "target
|
||
|
populations" in mind, for both individual and mass control.
|
||
|
Blacks, women, prisoners, the elderly, the young, and inmates of
|
||
|
psychiatric wards were selected as "potentially violent". There
|
||
|
were plans in California at the time for a "Centre for the Study
|
||
|
and Reduction of Violence", expanding on the horrific work of Dr.
|
||
|
Jose Delgado, Drs. Mark and Ervin, and Dr. Louis Jolyn West,
|
||
|
experts in implantation, psychosurgery and tranquillizers.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The history of MK-ULTRA and its sister programs (ARTICHOKE,
|
||
|
BLUEBIRD, etc.) records a combination of drugs, drug mixtures,
|
||
|
electro-shock and torture as methods for control. The desired
|
||
|
results ranged from temporary and permanent amnesia, uninhabited
|
||
|
confessions, and creation of second personalities, to programmed
|
||
|
assassins and pre-conditioned suicidal urges.
|
||
|
|
||
|
One goal was the ability to control mass populations especially
|
||
|
for cheap labor. Dr. Delgado told Congress that he hoped for a
|
||
|
future where a technology would control workers in the field and
|
||
|
troops at war with electronic remote signals. He found it hard to
|
||
|
understand why people would complain about electrodes implanted
|
||
|
in their brains to make them "both happy and productive".
|
||
|
|
||
|
Along with the notorious MK-ULTRA-linked psychiatrist Louis
|
||
|
Jolyon West, Rabbi Maurice Davis is involved in an advisory
|
||
|
capacity with the Cult Awareness Network. The Rabbi worked
|
||
|
closely with Dr. Harris Isbell in the Lexington, Kentucky federal
|
||
|
prison. This MK-ULTRA program included the intentional
|
||
|
administering of LSD to federal prisoners to evaluate the drugs
|
||
|
use in mind control and modification. It may be more than a
|
||
|
strange coincidence that Rabbi Davis arranged for Jim Jones to
|
||
|
use an empty synagogue in Indianapolis for his early activities.
|
||
|
In a further cruel irony, Louis Jolyon West received the Cult
|
||
|
Awareness Networks 1990 "Leo J. Ryan Award", in recognition of
|
||
|
his work against "religious cults".
|
||
|
|
||
|
Joyce Shaw, who spent six years in the Temple but left before the
|
||
|
move to Guyana, wondered if the reported "mass suicide" story was
|
||
|
a cover for "some kind of horrible government experiments, or
|
||
|
some sort of sick, racist thing..."
|
||
|
|
||
|
Were the residents of Jonestown the victims of an elaborate U.S.
|
||
|
government plot, as their leaders publicly claimed only weeks
|
||
|
before their murder? Was the CIA, through its agents within the
|
||
|
Peoples Temple, actively involved in subverting the community in
|
||
|
a bizarre MK-ULTRA mind control experiment?
|
||
|
|
||
|
On the evening of November 18, the Soviet Consul in Guyana was
|
||
|
approached by two extremely agitated members of the Peoples
|
||
|
Temple. One of them told him she had received news from
|
||
|
Jonestown, "Something terrible is going on there. I dont yet know
|
||
|
the details, but the life of all commune members is in danger.
|
||
|
The settlement is surrounded by armed men. Something has happened
|
||
|
to Ryan. He was attacked by some unknown men when he was
|
||
|
returning to Georgetown."
|
||
|
|
||
|
The Consul relates in the book The Jonestown Carnage, how
|
||
|
returning home that evening his wife told him that Jim Joness
|
||
|
assistant, Sharon Amos, had called from the Temple office in
|
||
|
Georgetown.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"Sharon was weeping and said that Jonestown had been surrounded
|
||
|
by armed men. In spite of the poor reception she had received a
|
||
|
radiogram which said that military helicopters were circling over
|
||
|
the settlement. 'Help us!' she screamed. 'Jonestown is being
|
||
|
destroyed! They wont spare anyone! Somebody is trying to get into
|
||
|
my flat. Do something! Save us!' Then they were cut off. My wife
|
||
|
immediately phoned the Guyanese police and was told that a
|
||
|
reinforced police detachment had been sent to the Amos home. But
|
||
|
it was too late. Amos and her three children were dead. They were
|
||
|
slaughtered by Blakey who was also a CIA agent infiltrated into
|
||
|
the Jones organisation. Later he was declared insane, and then
|
||
|
vanished from view. That terrible night of the 18th to the 19th
|
||
|
of November was the scene of a monstrous massacre."
|
||
|
|
||
|
On November 19 the Timehri airport in Guyana was unusually busy
|
||
|
and crowded with American servicemen. Standing on the runway was
|
||
|
a giant S-141 aircraft of the U.S. airforce out of which American
|
||
|
troops were unloading disassembled helicopters, jeeps, and some
|
||
|
small armaments. The bewildered Guyanese soldiers and officials
|
||
|
stood by speechless. One airport employee said he did not know
|
||
|
why a U.S. military plane was at a Guyanan civil airport. Nobody
|
||
|
knew why it had landed. That was not the first plane to have
|
||
|
arrived that day, the airport employee stated.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The Aftermath
|
||
|
|
||
|
Operations aimed at mass extermination of civilians in different
|
||
|
countries have been widely practised by the CIA as a means of
|
||
|
attaining political goals. Over the last 25 years alone the U.S.
|
||
|
Central Intelligence Agency has undertaken over 900 major secret
|
||
|
operations and several thousand smaller-scale terrorist actions.
|
||
|
One such operation, carried out in Vietnam under the code name
|
||
|
Phoenix, took about 80,000 lives.
|
||
|
|
||
|
What makes the carnage in Guyana so different from other CIA
|
||
|
crimes is that its victims were not foreigners; they were
|
||
|
Americans who had left their home country because they did not
|
||
|
want to live under the U.S. socio-political system. To this day,
|
||
|
the mass murder of hundreds of U.S. citizens in Jonestown has
|
||
|
never been investigated by U.S. authorities and the perpetrators
|
||
|
of the crime have been neither identified nor punished.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Yet, Jonestown is deeply etched into the religious and social
|
||
|
history of the modern world. The media routinely reminds us of
|
||
|
the dangers of sinister Peoples Temple like "Armageddon cults"
|
||
|
and "Bible-based suicide sects". Jim Jones is remembered as the
|
||
|
sinister "Bible-thumper" and evil demagogue who led his
|
||
|
brainwashed followers to a bizarre mass suicide.
|
||
|
|
||
|
This is, of course, the Establishment view. The image that
|
||
|
psychiatrist Louis Jolyon West and his friends in the Cult
|
||
|
Awareness Network do not want us to forget.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"Jonestown," wrote Jonathan Vankin, "bloomed in the moral and
|
||
|
spiritual abyss of the 1970s...its members were said to be
|
||
|
brainwashed - living proof that human beings were just so much
|
||
|
wire and circuitry. Cult members were often kidnapped back by
|
||
|
their families. The hired kidnappers were called 'deprogrammers'.
|
||
|
They might better have been called 'reprogrammers'."
|
||
|
(Conspiracies, Cover-ups and Crimes)
|
||
|
|
||
|
However, the Peoples Temple was not some strange, fringe-dwelling
|
||
|
"cult" and Jim Jones was not a small time preacher and part time
|
||
|
hustler. Back on March 31, 1977, journalist Bob Levering wrote
|
||
|
the following in The San Francisco Bay Guardian, before most of
|
||
|
the members moved to Guyana:
|
||
|
|
||
|
"The biggest religion story these days is the phenomenon of
|
||
|
Peoples Temple...that has been in San Francisco less than five
|
||
|
years but has already become the largest single Protestant
|
||
|
congregation in the state (more than 20,000 members),
|
||
|
participating in activities as diverse as supporting the tenants
|
||
|
at the International Hotel (more than 3000 church members turned
|
||
|
out for a demonstration last January) and publishing...the
|
||
|
monthly Peoples Forum (they distribute between 600,000 and 1,000,
|
||
|
000 copies to every neighbourhood in San Francisco)...The church.
|
||
|
..also has a free meals program...It conducts a massive human
|
||
|
service program including...its own medical and legal clinics, a
|
||
|
home for mentally disabled children and four nursing homes..."
|
||
|
|
||
|
The propaganda cover-up for the massacre of Jonestown was
|
||
|
provided by the U.S. intelligence agencies version of "the
|
||
|
suicide of religious fanatics."
|
||
|
|
||
|
The real tragedy of Jonestown is not only that it occurred, but
|
||
|
that so few chose to ask themselves why or how, so few sought to
|
||
|
find out the facts behind the bizarre tale used to explain away
|
||
|
the deaths of more than 900 people, and that so many will
|
||
|
continue to be blind to the grim reality of our intelligence
|
||
|
agencies. In the long run, the truth will come out. Only our
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complicity in the deception continues to dishonour the dead.
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PSYOPS- HTTP://WWW.TELEPORT.COM/~WALTER
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