Jonestown Suicide

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Jonestown Suicide

• (or was it a massacre?)

2
Introduction

• Two decades ago an unusual series of events led
  to the deaths of more than 900 people in the
  middle of a South American jungle. Though dubbed
  a "massacre," what transpired at Jonestown on
  November 18, 1978, was to some extent done
  willingly, making the mass suicide all the more
  disturbing.

3
Cult Leader Rev. Jim Jones

• The Jonestown cult (officially named the
  "People's Temple") was founded in 1955 by
  Indianapolis preacher James Warren Jones. Jones,
  who had no formal theological training, based his
  liberal ministry on a combination of religious
  and socialist philosophies.

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A New Community Needed

• Rev. Jim Jones was disliked in Indianapolis.
  After relocating to California in 1965, his
  church grew in numbers and spoke out about their
  strange religious and political ideas. With a
  financial investigation into and lots of bad
  press about his church, Jones urged his
  congregation to join him in a new, isolated
  community where they could escape American
  capitalismand criticismand practice a more
  communal way of life.

Welcome to Jonestown
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Jonestown - Guyana

• In 1977, Jones and many of his followers
  relocated to Jonestown, located on a tract of
  land the People's Temple had purchased and begun
  to develop in Guyana three years earlier.

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What was the camp like?

• Everybody had to give their money to Jones.
• Everybody worked to keep the camp
  self-sufficient.
• Parents would publicly beat their children for
  transgressions.
• Husbands and wives would be required to punish
  each other.
• There were no disagreement since rules were
  clearly laid down by Jones.
• Nobody left the commune because they would have
  to admit they were wrong to begin with and they
  no longer had any money to support themselves.
• Jones introduced outside threats which he took
  care of to enforce his position as a protective
  father figure.

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Its a Cult not a Church!!!!!

• Relatives of cult members soon grew concerned and
  requested that the U.S. government rescue what
  they believed to be brainwashed victims living in
  concentration camp-like conditions under Jones's
  power. Relatives described them as living
  zombies. They petitioned the US Government to do
  something.

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Congressman Ryan Investigates

• Relatives of the cult disappeared in the Guyana
  jungle looking for them
• People could not contact their relatives.
• There were social security irregularities about
  the community
• Human rights were being violated
• People were being held against their will
• People were being brainwashed
• In June 1978 Debbie Blakey, a defector from
  Jonestown, claimed that the community at
  Jonestown had, on a number of occasions,
  rehearsed for a mass suicide.

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Congressman Ryan Visits
In November 1978 Congressman Leo Ryan went to
Guyana to Jonestown to interview its inhabitants.
After having his life threatened by a Temple
member during the first day of his visit, Ryan
cut his trip short and attempted to return to the
U.S. with some of the Jonestown residents. As
they boarded their plane, a group of Jones's
guards opened fire on them, killing Ryan and four
others.
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Some Escaped

• Some members of Ryan's party escaped, however.
  Upon learning this, Jones told his followers that
  Ryan's murder would make it impossible for their
  commune to continue functioning.

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No other option suicide!

• Rather than return to the United States, the
  People's Temple would preserve their church by
  making the ultimate sacrifice their own lives.
  Jones's 912 followers were given a deadly
  concoction of purple Kool-Aid mixed with cyanide,
  sedatives, and tranquilizers.

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Even the children

• There were babies and children at the Guyana
  compound as well. They were forced to drink Kool
  Aid laced with the cyanide poison by their
  parents. It is thought that very few people
  argued against the suicide attempt.

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Rev. Jim Jones

• Jones apparently shot himself in the head after
  the cyanide had taken effect on the rest of the
  compound. The whole world was rocked by the
  apparent voluntary suicide of over 900 people.

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Theories about Jonestown
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Was Jonestown a CIA Mind Control Camp?

• According to one of these theories, Jonestown
  may have been a continuation of a CIA
  mind-control program that infiltrated cults, such
  as The Peoples Temple, to carry out their
  experiments.

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Not everybody died why?

• The official report stated that there were
  approximately 1100 people at Jonestown at the
  time of the massacre but other reports claim that
  there were closer to 1200. Of this number there
  were 913 dead bodies found and 167 survivors.
  Twenty people are left unaccounted for. Were
  these the assassins of Ryan and was it a
  government cover-up?

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Anti-CIA Senator!

• Ryans murder is viewed as being more sinister
  than the behaviour of a madman. Ryan had been a
  strong critic of the CIA and was the author of
  the Hughes-Ryan Act which would have made that
  the CIA report all of its covert operations
  before they commenced. Soon after Ryans death,
  the Act was stopped in Congress. Was Ryan killed
  to prevent the Act passing and the massacre at
  Jonestown merely a smoke screen to distract
  attention away from Ryans murder?

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No autopsy very hush hush!

• The CIA were first on the scene after the
  massacre and they gave strict instructions that
  no autopsy of the suicide victims take place.

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Not a suicide

• Examinations conducted by the coroner Mootoo
  revealed that as many as 700 of the victims were
  murders. Mootoo claimed that he examined the
  bodies of 137 victims. They had all been injected
  with cyanide in areas of their bodies unreachable
  by their own hand, such as between the shoulder
  blades.

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Green Berets why were they so close?

• One of the Green Berets who were the first
  American troops at the camp, claimed that We saw
  many bullet wounds as well as wounds from
  crossbow bolts. Those who were shot appeared to
  have been running toward the jungle, away from
  the compound, at the time they were shot. Many
  people have speculated that maybe 500 people had
  escaped the voluntary suicide and escaped into
  the jungle, but were hunted down and murdered.
  There were obvious signs that many of the bodies
  had been dragged to their final resting place.

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But who did it?

• The major questions are
• Was it the Green Berets that killed over almost
  1100 people in the Guyana jungle to cover up for
  killing Leo Ryan and destroy an Anti-CIA Act?
• or
• Did Jones order the missing men to kill any of
  his cult followers that refused to take the
  cyanide laced Kool Aid?

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We Will Never Know?