Jonestown Massacre Survivors React to Site Becoming Tourism Destination: "Horrified"
More than 900 people lost their lives in the mass suicide and murder at the remote jungle compound in the fall of 1978.
A tour operator is planning to turn Jonestown, a remote area in Guyana surrounded by jungle where more than 900 people died under the direction of cult leader Jim Jones, into a tourist destination.
The tour, backed by the South American country’s government, would take interested parties back to the site of one of the largest mass suicide and murder in history, according to NBC News.
The news outlet is reporting that Wanderlust Adventures, the company behind the dark history tour, has already sold its first round of $650 tickets for an inaugural tour to the former gravesite in January.
"The thing is, Jonestown remains a tragic part of Guyana’s history, but it is also an event of global significance," Roselyn Sewcharran, owner and founder of Wanderlust Adventures, explained to the news outlet. "It offers critical lessons about cult psychology, manipulation and abuse of power."
But the country’s plans have drawn criticism from some of those who survived the violence, including former U.S. Congresswoman Jackie Speier, who told KTVU she was “horrified” by the company’s plans.
What is Jonestown?
Jonestown became a dark part of history in the fall of 1978 after Jones’ followers were forced to drink a fruity drink laced with cyanide at the direction of the preacher.
Jones had once been a respected preacher with the People’s Temple in San Francisco, but moved with his followers to the jungle of Guyana after claims began to emerge that he beat or humiliated some of the people in his flock, according to Dateline: Secrets Uncovered.
Jones claimed their new home was a jungle paradise where followers could live their best lives, but after concerns began to emerge that some of the followers weren’t allowed to leave the compound, Congressman Leo Ryan visited with an NBC News crew.
After the visit, Ryan and the others were trying to leave from a nearby airstrip with those members of Jones’ group who wanted to flee when a small group of Jones' followers arrived and opened fire on the group. Ryan and four others were killed, while 10 others lay injured.
Fearing retribution from the Guyanese army, known as the GDF, Jones instructed his followers to drink the deadly drink.
“Please get it, before it’s too late. The GDF’ll be here I tell you. Get movin’ get movin’ get movin’,” he said in haunting audio recordings recovered from the compound. “Don’t be afraid to die.”
More than 900 people, including Jones himself, would later be found dead at the site.
What will visitors see on the tour of Jonestown?
For nearly 50 years, the site has sat abandoned, but now, Wanderlust Adventures plans to turn the area into a tourist attraction.
Tourists will travel from the city of Georgetown to the remote Port Kaituma airport, where Ryan and members of the NBC News crew were killed, while also visiting Jonestown as part of an overnight visit to the abandoned commune, according to The Associated Press.
Sewcharran compared the tour to existing treks to concentration camps or other sites where lives were lost.
“We think it is about time,” she told the AP. “This happens all over the world. We have multiple examples of dark, morbid tourism around the world, including Auschwitz and the Holocaust museum.”
The country’s tourism minister, Oneidge Walrond, told the AP the government is supportive of the private company’s plans, but also understands there is “some level of push back.”
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How do Jonestown survivors feel about tourism plans?
Speier, who was Ryan’s congressional aide at the time and survived multiple gunshot wounds, has criticized the plans.
"I was horrified because it doesn't deserve to be a tourist attraction," she told KTVU. "And for a company to think this is adventure tourism is missing the mark."
Speier said she hopes the U.S. government will write “a strongly worded letter” to the Prime Minister of Guyana discouraging the plans. She added that if the country wants to create a memorial to those who lost their lives, the better location would be in Georgetown.
"This is a very remote area of Guyana, in the middle of the jungle deep, in a jungle with a remote airstrip," she said.
Jynona Norwood, who lost 27 family members in the tragedy, said she is hoping to learn more about the country’s plans, but also wouldn’t be supportive of them profiting from the massacre.
"I would not support them making money and not doing anything good with the money that they make off the tourist attraction, if they're charging,” she told KTVU. “It would be shameful.”
Jordan Vilchez, who lived at the compound but had been in Georgetown the day of the mass suicide, told the Associated Press she has mixed feelings.
While she understands the country’s desire to boost tourism, she said she felt “like any situation where people were manipulated into their deaths should be treated with respect."
