Latest news with #masssuicide
News.com.au
14-07-2025
- News.com.au
Controversy as notorious Jonestown cult site where 918 died becomes tourist attraction
Warning: This story includes details and photos which may be distressing Jonestown is seared into the American psyche as one the darkest tragedies of the modern era, where 918 people 'drank the Kool Aid' and ended their lives under the command of cult leader Jim Jones. Located in the remote Guyanese jungle, the site where the army first discovered the mass of dead bodies of People's Temple members in 1978 is now opening as a somewhat morbid tourist attraction, the New York Post reports. It is designed to pay sombre tribute in the manner of Auschwitz and the Killing Fields of Cambodia. The curious can pay $US750 ($A1140) to visit the clearing where Jones' religious cult, mostly US citizens who had travelled with him to Guyana in South America, unravelled in the most gruesome way imaginable. And there were survivors — although the overall story of Jones' followers poisoning themselves with cyanide-laced fruit punch (it was actually an off-brand version of Kool-Aid called Flavor-Aid) is notorious, lesser known are how around 80 of Jones' acolytes survived. Some did it by getting lucky and being out of town when the poisonous drinks were served, including Jones' son Stephan Gandhi Jones, who was at a basketball tournament. Others slipped out unseen, running into the jungle or hiding in the camp's cupboards. About 18 of Jones' followers took Congressman Leo Ryan – whose visit to the camp sparked the mass suicide – up on his offer to leave the religious enclave with him. Jordan Vilchez, now 67, who joined the People's Church at 12 and remained there until the end, was fortunate enough to be in Guyana's capital, Georgetown, when the mass suicides went down. 'I created a job for myself, talking about Jonestown to the Guyanese community. That task was acceptable to the leadership, and it allowed me to not spend so much time in Jonestown,' she told The Post. Hearing over a CB radio the Jonestown suicides were happening, she was horrified but not entirely surprised. 'There had been discussions about a mass suicide,' said Ms Vilchez, who lost two sisters and two nephews to the forced killings. 'In some circles, there were practice drills. There was talk of 'Revolutionary Suicide'. There was a running narrative of us being persecuted. 'Unbeknown to us, the world was closing in on Jim. Because of his pathological narcissism, he was not going to go down alone. People were stuck and emotionally drained – I got caught up in it and was not going to escape. Over the years, we got more hooked in. We were told that America would become a police state and our safety was in being part of this group.' Ms Vilchez is against the new tours to the site – where little remains, apart from a commemorative stone and the entrance archway. 'It seems silly. It's something that people will make money from. It seems like an abuse.' The Guyanese tourism company behind the trips, Wanderlust Adventures GY, defend their position. 'We want to present things in a way that is responsible and educational,' Roselyn Sewcharran, founder of the company, told The Post. During the overnight trip to Jonestown 'we talk about the social and political issues, the dangers of following with blind faith and the lessons learned from the Jonestown tragedy.' The People's Temple was founded by Jim Jones, a Communist sympathiser, in Indianapolis, in 1955. He put on fake healings to generate income and promoted the idea that all races and ethnicities would be welcome. In 1961, with the cold war top of mind for most Americans, Jones claimed to have a vision that Indianapolis would be decimated by nuclear attack. The People's Temple relocated to California, with its main headquarters in San Francisco. Jones began proclaiming, 'I am come as God Socialist [sic].' Once in the heavily hippie-fied Frisco, Jones began dabbling in illicit drugs and his sense of paranoia is said to have ratcheted up. Jones, who had a particularly magnetic personality, put up a convincing argument for belonging and in 1974, the People's Temple rented more than 3800 acres in Guyana, a tropical country which borders Venezuela. Jones promised to create a 'socialist paradise,' and reminded followers how he'd read that in the event of a nuclear war, South America was the safest place to be. He sent a cadre of followers to set things up, while he led the church in San Francisco. Things went fairly smoothly at first. 'It was great,' said Thom Bogue, who moved to Guyana in 1976 at the age of 15 with his family. 'I'd work eight hours a day, helping to build cottages and overseeing my own crew in the plant nursery. Then I'd go in the jungle and play before having a nice meal.' Mike Touchette, another Jonestown survivor, agrees. 'We built a community out of nothing in four years,' he told the Chicago Tribune. 'Being in Jonestown before Jim got there was the best thing in my life.' However, in 1977 an article filled with accusations appeared in New West magazine – including that a member's teenage daughter was beaten so badly 'her butt looked like hamburger,' driving Jones to flee to Guyana. Within a year, things on the commune got harder, and weirder. Survivors say there was a feeling of victimhood, perpetrated by Jones. His rambling meetings went on for hours, workdays seemed endless and it became all about ideology rather than Utopia. 'It steadily got worse … Ninety-five per cent of the people had no idea what was going on. It was like being stuck on an island,' Mr Bogue said. However, some did escape and word got back to California, prompting that state's congressman Leo Ryan and a group of journalists to arrive in November 1978, intending to investigate complaints from escapees. Mr Bogue's father was already hatching an escape plan, but when Mr Ryan offered an opportunity to leave with him, the family said they'd join. 'It was a very high-risk opportunity,' Mr Bogue, now 63, said about his family proceeding with Mr Ryan and others to a landing strip where a plane waited to fly them out. 'But maybe it was the best opportunity.' When the group assembled at an airstrip to leave, cult members, including one named Larry Layton, opened fire on them. Mr Ryan was shot dead as were three journalists and a temple member hoping to escape. Layton was later extradited, found guilty of wounding two people and served 18 years in a California prison. Mr Bogue, then 17, was inside the plane when its tires were shot out. He got up from his seat just as one member was shot in the head. Bogue took a bullet to the leg. When the shooting seemed to have abated, he and his sister ran off into the bordering jungle. Back at camp, knowing he'd be implicated in the death of a US senator, Jones gave the command to his faithful that it was time for Revolutionary Suicide. Syringes of cyanide were squirted into juice and sandwiches and consumed by the congregation – the children first. Jones shot himself in the head. Despite his injury, Mr Bogue survived in the jungle for three days. 'I was saved by maggots. They ate the gangrene. And then, during the third morning, I became delirious. I lost all sense of direction. But I was with my sister and three others from [another] family.' They were found and he was reunited with his father. They made their way back to the US shortly after. Nearly 47 years later Bogue works as an auto mechanic and serves as vice mayor of Dixon, California. 'I think it's great to turn it into a tourist attraction and a memorial,' he said, 'I've already been back there three times and the jungle is starting to reclaim the area. I would love to be a consultant on something like that.'
Japan Times
26-05-2025
- General
- Japan Times
How a remote island escaped mass suicide in Battle of Okinawa
It was a desperate plea from a boy that prevented a mass suicide on a remote island in Okinawa Prefecture when U.S. forces landed 80 years ago. On March 26, 1945, the Battle of Okinawa began with the U.S. landing on Aka Island, one of the small islands in the Kerama Islands chain. That day, 10-year-old Jinsei Nakamura was among nearly 400 islanders who fled to a valley so shadowed it stayed dim even during the day. Fearing that the valley offered little protection, about 15 members of Nakamura's family and relatives headed into the mountains that night in search of a safer place. But on an island with a circumference of just 12 kilometers, there were few places to hide. Cold rain fell as the group wandered through the night. When dawn broke, through the trees, they saw a vast fleet of U.S. battleships stretching across the sea. Then the shelling began — from the sea and the sky. Nakamura's group was physically and mentally exhausted, and adults began discussing what to do next. 'Let's die together with grenades,' one of the relatives said. Overhearing the conversation, Nakamura snapped and shouted, 'I'm not going to die, never!' Nakamura remembers thinking they had been fleeing through the mountains to survive, and he couldn't think of any good reason to die. More than anything, he was scared. Upon hearing the child's desperate resistance, the adults came to their senses. They realized that they had only two grenades that had been distributed by the Japanese military. 'These are not enough to kill all of us,' one of the adults said. Soon after, however, someone then suggested they should all jump off the cliffs in the southern part of the island. "You throw your own child," one of the relatives was telling Nakamura's mother as they began to walk toward the cliffs. As they made their way to a nearby stream to fetch water one last time before death, they unexpectedly ran into other islanders they had believed were killed in the shelling. That encounter showed there were still survivors — and Nakamura's family made it through as well. Jinsei Nakamura talks about his experience of war as a boy on Aka Island 80 years ago, during an interview in Naha in March. | Nishinippon Shimbun Over two days starting March 26, U.S. forces landed on the Kerama Islands — beginning with Aka Island — to establish a supply base ahead of their assault on Okinawa's main island. As American troops advanced, around 700 residents across four islands — Tokashiki, Zamami, Geruma and Yakabi — were driven to mass suicide. Residents had been told that if captured, women would be assaulted and men mutilated by U.S. soldiers. Masaie Ishihara, professor emeritus of peace studies at Okinawa International University, said that the residents were caught between fear of the U.S. forces that they believed were 'brutal' and the Japanese military that prohibited them from surrendering. 'The islanders were driven to a hopeless situation with nowhere to escape,' he said. On Aka Island, however, mass suicides did not occur because there were no Japanese soldiers or local leaders who forced residents to kill themselves. The U.S. military withdrew from the island on March 30, four days after landing. As a result, people on Aka Island have held less resentment toward the former Japanese military compared to residents on other islands, and Aka islanders have continued to accept memorial visits from former soldiers and their bereaved families after the war. Even today, a trace of the exchanges between a bereaved family and the islanders can be found at Aka Elementary and Junior High School. In one corner of the school library, about 1,300 children's books are crammed onto the shelves. The collection is called the "Hoashi Library," established with books sent by the bereaved family of Takao Hoashi from Fukuoka Prefecture, who died in the war after departing from Aka Island on an attack boat. Over half a century, the family has donated more than 5,000 books, including world literature and picture books. Yoshitaka Kakinohana recalls exchanges with the bereaved family of Takao Hoashi as he visits Aka Elementary and Junior High School's library, which has a collection of books donated by the family. | Nishinippon Shimbun Yoshitaka Kakinohana, 80, a former junior high school teacher on Aka Island who helped who once helped maintain the book collection, fondly looked around the library. "When I come here, I feel the strong wishes of the bereaved family," he said. Hoashi was born in 1922. After studying at Nippon Sport Science University, he worked as a physical education teacher in Fukuoka Prefecture. Around the autumn of 1944, Hoashi was stationed on Aka Island as a second lieutenant in the Japanese Imperial Army's maritime raiding unit. On his days off, he visited the then-national school on the island and played sports with the children. In late March 1945, Hoashi departed in a suicide attack boat loaded with bombs, which was known as a "Marure." He never returned. The Hoashi Library began when Hoashi's mother, Haya, who lived in the city of Fukuoka, started sending books in around 1970. A relief displayed on the wall above the book collection shows Haya holding her son's military cap and introduces her as the "Mother of Books." No one knows for sure why she began donating books, but it may be connected to Hoashi's background as a teacher, says Kakinohana, who now lives in Tomigusuku, Okinawa Prefecture. After Haya died in 1975, Hoashi's siblings continued her wishes — but due to aging, they made a final donation in 2018 along with a sum of money. Kakinohana, who was born one month before the Battle of Okinawa began, has no memories of Hoashi. However, since Kakinohana was a child, his mother often told him that Hoashi was his 'godfather." While stationed on Aka Island, Hoashi frequently visited the Kakinohana family and named the newborn by taking the kanji character "Taka' from his own name. After the war, Kakinohana's older brothers kept in touch with Hoashi's family and acted as a bridge for the book donations. Kakinohana himself became involved after he turned 30. In 1975, while traveling with his wife in Kyushu, Kakinohana came up with the idea of visiting the Hoashi family. To the surprise of the family, Haya had died the day before Kakinohana visited. "Mother's spirit must have called you here," one of Hoashi's siblings said. During Haya's wake, the family shared a story of how she would wake up in the middle of the night even with the sound of a door creaking at their house, saying, "Takao has come home." Since that trip, Kakinohana developed a family-like relationship with Hoashi's siblings beyond the book donations. "I walked the same path with Hoashi as a teacher, so they treated me like their younger brother," Kakinohana said. Even his eldest daughter, who was working in the city of Fukuoka, stayed for a while at the house of Hoashi's sister. While working and after retirement, Kakinohana devoted himself to peace education for children in the community, driven by the feelings of Hoashi and his bereaved family. "Hoashi's dream of being a teacher was cut short in his 20s, and his mother waited for her son's return forever,' Kakinohana said. 'We must never allow such a tragedy between parent and child again.' Aka Elementary and Junior High School continues to purchase about ¥50,000 worth of books annually with the donated funds. On the Hoashi Library's explanatory board, Kakinohana's handwriting is engraved with the words: "War must never be repeated." This section features topics and issues from the Kyushu region covered by the Nishinippon Shimbun, the largest daily newspaper in Kyushu. The original article was published March 25.
