The site of the Jonestown massacre opens to tourists. Some ask why.

Boston Globe

3 days ago

After decades of hesitation over how to handle Jonestown's legacy, which many Guyanese see as a stain on their small South American nation, a new tour allows visitors to confront the traumatic event.
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The Jonestown Memorial Tour, operated by a Guyanese company called Wanderlust Adventures GY, offers a $750 trip that includes a flight from the capital, Georgetown, a bumpy hourlong van ride, and a night in the nearby mining town of Port Kaituma.
The tour has provoked backlash from Guyanese eager to shed any association with Jonestown, named for Jones, and from survivors who say commodifying what happened there is lurid.
One survivor, John Cobb, 65, called it 'a money grab to capitalize on a tragedy.' He happened to be in the Guyanese capital during the mass deaths, but 11 relatives, including his mother and five siblings, died.
The company's owner, Roselyn Sewcharran, said the goal was not sensationalism but education about 'the dangers of manipulation, unchecked authority, and the circumstances that led to this devastating event.'
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Sewcharran, who was born and raised in Guyana, studied sociology and founded her tour company five years ago. Repeated requests from foreign travelers interested in visiting Jonestown led to the idea for a tour.
'I've always been curious about social issues and their impact,' she said. 'There genuinely was a desire to learn more about this significant chapter of our past.'
She soon brought Chris Persaud on as a guide.
Persaud, who works as an information technology consultant, said his grandfather, a Guyanese journalist, had been invited to Jonestown by the team of a visiting lawmaker, Representative Leo Ryan, a California Democrat, but he declined, sensing danger. Persaud said he sees his role as continuing his grandfather's legacy of storytelling.
On a sweltering Saturday earlier this year, Sewcharran led an inaugural tour. As leaves crunched underfoot, she paused at the entrance, where a replica of the original 'Welcome to Jonestown' sign stands.
'I'd just like us to take a moment of silence for all the lives lost,' she said.
Persaud explained how Jones — a preacher described by many of his followers as charismatic and who spoke about racial equality — founded Peoples Temple in Indiana in 1955, before moving to California.
In 1977, Jones, along with hundreds of followers, moved to Guyana to build what he portrayed as a self-sufficient, interracial community amid mounting US legal investigations and media scrutiny over accusations against Jones of physical abuse and financial fraud.
Adherents handed over their life savings, passports, and possessions and labored 12 hours a day as Jones grew increasingly paranoid.
On Nov. 17, 1978, Ryan went to Jonestown after relatives of people in the settlement reported claims of abuse. The next day, as he and several group members attempted to leave, followers of Jones opened fire at the Port Kaituma airstrip, killing Ryan, three journalists, and a Peoples Temple member.
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That afternoon, anticipating that the killing of a US Congress member would mean the end of Jonestown, Jones orchestrated a mass murder-suicide, commanding followers to drink cyanide-laced punch under threat from armed guards. Some were forcibly given poison with syringes. Jones died alongside them.
Persaud and Sewcharran spent two years researching the event, traveling to the site and interviewing locals familiar with what happened.
Today, the area is largely barren, but they hope to add signs and a small museum.
A previous effort to turn Jonestown into a tourism site earlier this century fizzled.
'It's a niche market,' Sewcharran said. 'It's not for everyone.'
Guyana, an English-speaking country bordering Venezuela, has a booming oil sector and an influx of foreigners with disposable income, so the country's small tourism industry is trying to expand offerings like ecotourism, said Dee George, president of Guyana's tourism association.
Jonestown, she added, 'is part of us, whether we like it or not.'
The inaugural tour conducted by Sewcharran included two of her relatives, two journalists and two tourists: a 66-year-old Norwegian executive and Sean Traverse, 48, a full-time traveler from California.
Traverse said there was an inconsistency in how 'dark tourism' is perceived, noting that tourists also visit Auschwitz and the Colosseum.
He said he had spent years trying to visit Jonestown, even reaching out to bush pilots for price quotes. When he heard about the new tour he was the first to sign up.
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He grew up in California's Ventura County, and said he spent part of his childhood in the Church Universal and Triumphant, a New Age group that sought to build a self-sufficient community to survive an expected nuclear apocalypse and drew criticism for some of its actions. A California court awarded a former member $1.56 million in damages, citing coercion from the group to hand over his life's savings.
Traverse said he understood the appeal of the Jonestown community and how groups like Peoples Temple can turn abusive.
Being at the site of so much horror and confronting how easily people — including his own family — could be drawn into manipulative movements overwhelmed him, he said.
'I've had experience of people being in groups that were super positive until they weren't,' he said.
He said Jonestown remains relevant because he believes many Americans are experiencing a spiritual void that cults claim to fill. 'I don't think it's far-fetched that it could happen again,' Traverse said.
In interviews, reactions by residents of the small town to the tour ranged from bemusement to indifference. Some said the area was haunted and most try to avoid it.
'It's a nice idea, but it's not something to remember,' said Tiffany Daniels, 32, who owns a restaurant. 'It's just bad energy. It's a lot of lives.'
Her daughter Serena, 11, found it strange that tourists would pay to visit.
'I would not like to go there,' she said. 'At all.'
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