It is a place in South America where “atrocities and human rights violations were committed against a submissive group of American citizens”
Guyana considers turning Jonestown into a tourist attraction
por Associated Press ()
Guyana is revisiting a dark history almost half a century old, dating back to the time when American Reverend Jim Jones and more than 900 of his followers died in the rural interior of this South American country.
It was the largest suicide murder in recent history. Now, a government-backed tour operator wants to open this ancient commune, which has since been shrouded in lush vegetation, to tourists. This proposal is reopening old wounds, with critics saying it disrespects victims and dredges up a sordid past.
Jordan Vilchez, who grew up in California and was transferred to the Peoples Temple commune at age 14, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that she has mixed feelings about what is happening.
Jordan Vilchez was in Guyana’s capital on the day Jones ordered hundreds of his followers to drink a poisoned grape-flavored drink – which was first given to children. Jordan Vilchez’s two sisters and two nephews were among the victims.
“And I almost didn’t die”, he recalls.
Jordan Vilchez, 67, says Guyana has every right to profit from any plans related to Jonestown. “On the other hand, I feel that any situation in which people were manipulated into dying should be treated with respect”, he emphasizes.
Jordan Vilchez adds that he hopes the tour operator will provide context and explain why so many people came to Guyana trusting they would find a better life.
The eventual upcoming sightseeing tour will take visitors to the remote village of Port Kaituma, nestled in the lush jungles of northern Guyana. It is a trip that can only be done by boat, helicopter or plane; Rivers rather than roads connect Guyana’s interior. Once there, it’s another six kilometers via a rough, overgrown dirt track to the abandoned commune and former farming settlement.
Neville Bissember, a law professor at the University of Guyana, questions the tourism proposal, calling it a “macabre and bizarre” idea, in a recently published letter.
“What part of Guyana’s nature and culture is represented in a place where death by mass suicide and other atrocities and human rights violations were perpetrated against a submissive group of American citizens, who had nothing to do with Guyana or the Guyanese?” he wrote.
Despite the criticism, the possible future tour has the strong support of the Government Tourism Authority and the Guyana Tourism and Hospitality Association.
The Minister of Tourism, Oneidge Walrond, tells the AP that the government is supporting the effort in Jonestown, but also says that she is aware of “some level of resistance” from certain sectors of society.
The minister adds that the government has already helped clean up the area “to ensure a better product can be commercialized”, adding that the excursion may need further approval.
“You certainly have my support,” he says. “It is possible. After all, and as an example, we saw what Rwanda did with that terrible tragedy.”
Rose Sewcharran, director of Wonderlust Adventures, the private tour operator that plans to take visitors to Jonestown, is excited about the government support.
“We think it’s about time. This happens all over the world. We have several examples of dark and morbid tourism around the world, including Auschwitz and the Holocaust museum.”
Attract tourists
The mass suicide of November 1978 was synonymous with Guyana for decades, until large quantities of oil and gas were discovered off the country’s coast almost a decade ago, making it one of the largest offshore oil producers in the world.
New roads, schools and hotels are being built in the capital – Georgetown – and beyond. And a country that rarely saw tourists now hopes to attract more.
An obvious attraction is Jonestown, argues Astill Paul, co-pilot of a twin-engine plane that transported U.S. Rep. Leo J. Ryan of California and a team of American journalists to a village near the commune, the day before hundreds of people were killed. , on November 18, 1978. He witnessed gunmen fatally shoot Ryan and four other people as they tried to board a plane on November 18 and fly back to the capital.
Astill Paul tells AP he believes the former commune should be turned into a heritage site.
“Years ago, I was on the tourism board and suggested we do this, but the minister at the time rejected the idea because the government didn’t want anything to do with morbid tourism,” he recalls.
Until recently, successive governments avoided Jonestown, arguing that the country’s image had been seriously damaged by the mass murder-suicide. The overwhelming majority of victims were American nationals, who traveled to Guyana to follow Jones. Many suffered beatings, forced labor, imprisonment and trials for mass suicide.
Proponents of a sightseeing tour include Gerry Gouveia, a pilot who also flew when Jonestown was active.
“The area should be rebuilt just so that tourists can see first-hand its layout and what happened. We should rebuild the Jim Jones house, the main lodge and other buildings that were there.”
Today, all that remains are pieces of a cassava mill, pieces of the main pavilion and a rusty tractor that once hauled a flatbed trailer to take temple members to the Port Kaituma airfield.
An offering to the earth
So far, most visitors to Jonestown have been reporters and family members of those who died.
Organizing a tour on your own is scary: the area is far from the capital and difficult to access and some consider the nearest town to be dangerous.
“It’s still a very, very, very difficult area,” says Fielding McGehee, co-director of the Jonestown Institute, a nonprofit group. “I don’t see how this is going to be an economically viable type of project given the huge amounts of money that would be needed to turn it into a viable place to visit.”
Fielding McGehee also warns about the quality of information from the alleged witnesses who will be involved in organizing the eventual tourist excursion. It says that memories and stories passed down from generation to generation may not be accurate.
“It doesn’t help anyone understand what happened in Jonestown,” he says.
Fielding McGehee recalls that a survivor proposed a personal project to develop the abandoned site, but members of the temple community responded: “But why would you want to do that?”
McGehee notes that going to Jonestown means tourists can say they visited a place where more than 900 people died on the same day.
“It’s the Puritan interest in tragedy,” he says.
If the tour eventually starts operating, not everything will be visible to tourists.
When Jordan Vilchez returned to Guyana in 2018, for the first time since the mass suicide killing, he made an offering to the land when he arrived in Jonestown.
Among the things he buried in the abandoned commune where his sisters and nephews died were pieces of his mother and father’s hair, which did not make it to Jonestown.
