by Ray Black
Doomsday predictions were endlessly lectured by Mwerinde and the other leaders to their flock. When the predicted day passed without any world-ending events the date would be pushed forward. By the time the world had entered the year 2000 it is said that some cult members may have started to suspect something, but Mwerinde calmed these feelings in a constitution. She stated that the world would end ‘before the completion of the year 2000’. There would be no 2001. For many of her members she remained true to her word as on March 17, 2000, a terrifying fire was to take place that would mean the end of the world for hundreds of innocent people.
INVITATION TO CELEBRATE
On March 15, 2000, Joseph Kibwetere issued a letter to government officials describing the world changing events that were about to take place. It spoke of the end of the current generation of people and of the world. The messenger dropped off the letter and bid farewell. The members also started to take part in activities that can be seen as preparation for the end or in preparation of a celebration, or both. They slaughtered cattle and bought a large supply of soft drinks such as cola. At the same time members started to travel across the country inviting both current and old members back to the compound in time for March 17. Members were reported as saying that on this day the Virgin Mary was to appear. Many members of the commune started to sell products to the nearby villagers for little or no profit and many debts within the community were settled. A local shop keeper alleges to have sold one of the apostles – Father Dominic Kataribabo – 40 litres of sulphuric acid which he claimed was needed to replenish power batteries.
BLAZING INFERNO
On the night of March 15, 2000, the members consumed the beef and drinks and had a celebration in honour of their new church, which they had recently constructed. On March 16, the members spent most of the night praying and then met early on March 17, in the new church. It is reported that around 10 a.m. they were all seen leaving the new church to enter the old church, which was now being used as a dining hall.
Did the hundreds of devout worshippers know that this would be the last time they saw the fresh air or did they think they were going to carry on with the celebration feast in the dining hall? When the members finally realised what was going on were they too exhausted and confused to resist?
Approximately 600 people went into the old church on this day and stayed where they were as the windows and doors were boarded up and nailed shut around them. At around 10.30 a.m. nearby villagers heard a massive explosion and when they arrived at the scene a gargantuan inferno had rapidly taken hundreds of lives.
The victims of the blaze included people from all generations; men, women and children perished. The death toll even today is still not accurately known but reports state that between 300 and 600 people died on that ‘apocalyptic’ morning. It is not even known if the leaders of the movement perished with their followers.
Joseph Kibwetere’s family believe that he is dead although his body has not yet been positively identified. A ring believed to have belonged to Kibwetere was found on the finger of a charred body amongst the rubble of the burned church. But is this enough to prove that the 12 apostles burnt together with their followers?
There are mixed views as to what happened to Credonia Mwerinde. A few days after the fire police claimed to have found her body, but some people believe that she is still alive. One local business man claims to have discussed selling cult land, vehicles and property just days before the fire. There have also been sightings of her in surrounding countries including the Democratic of the Congo where due to the lack of laws in the country there would be no way of her being faced with any kind of justice or arrest.
SUICIDE OR MURDER?
Straight after the inferno news spread of the mass suicide by the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, but soon discoveries were made that brought a new question into the equation – was this in fact mass murder?
Four days after the fire, five bodies were found buried under fresh cement in the compound’s latrines. When the people died and who killed them remains a mystery.
On March 25, 2000, 153 further bodies were found under the house of Dominic Kataribabao. The bodies were killed in a variation of ways; hacked, strangled and poisoned. How these murders were carried out without raising any awareness from surrounding neighbours is alarming. Local villagers heard no shouts or screams for help. The only sounds were of the diggers hard at work. When asked what they were doing by local villagers they answered that they were digging new latrines. What it seems like in hind-sight is that the members were digging their own graves.
The mass graves still remain a mystery. Everything is just speculation. The graves are believed to date back to a year or more prior to the blaze. One conclusion for why the graves were there, could be due to the strict categories that the members belonged to. It is possible the lower groups, who did not have fully-fledged members that were ‘willing to die in the arc’, lost their lives here anyway.
GOVERNMENT COVER-UP / PUZZLE
As well as the theory that Mwerinde and/or Kibwetere had in fact set up and murdered their followers, there is also another belief circulating that the whole thing could have been a government cover-up, with the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments being the scape-goat.
There are so many conflicting news stories reported and written on this case that mass suicide, murders and government/ police cover up are all equally plausible theories.
Newspapers showed pictures of the mass graves that were found in the weeks after the fire. The images showed dead bodies piled up on top of each other. Whereas the police said that these had been added one by one, another source said that the way the bodies were piled looked more as though they were buried all at once, and had been thrown off a dump truck all together.
Another queer event was that a police spokesman had declared that a number of policemen had died in the fire. If this is the case, what were they doing there?
The Ugandan government were also happy to use the tragedy to enforce the restriction of non-mainstream religious groups.
Professor of Religious Studies, Irving Hexham, goes as far as to believe that after the initial number of deaths – which tallied with the number of registered group members – was used as a cover up and stated: ‘Some enterprising police and army officers may have decided to use the tragedy as a cover to dispose of the bodies of murdered political prisoners.’
It could have been easy for this to have happened. It wouldn’t have taken much for the media to start spreading ‘evil-cult’ stories, which would immediately draw the audience in to believe that it was a weird bunch of people brain-washed by the belief of a heavenly after life. People then would get so carried away with that thought process that the government could then start to back it and confirm that this was the truth and no one would even start to think that there could have been conflicting evidence. The media were eager for another story like the Jonestown incident that had happened in Guyana, South America, in 1978.
BLURRED HISTORY
The problem is that there is not enough known on the people involved in the group or the years running up to the tragedy. So many actions and events went unnoticed for so long that a factual account and the truth will probably get further and further away the more years that pass.
It has already become something of an urban legend for the new millennium. People make up their own account of what actually happened depending on their political and religious standpoint. Easy answers come from stating that the leaders were evil beings possessed with greed for money, or that they were a sect brainwashed with twisted religious ideas. Either may be the case but there is definitely a lot more to it. Due to the location of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God and the lack of inside information it is difficult to paint a completely true and factual picture of what went on within this group. Reporters and local citizens of the area are so culturally different that any facts will be interpreted
a thousand ways, and anti-cult groups have also forced their own beliefs about the tragedy into print, that it is hard to filter out what is the truth from what is just hearsay and whisper.
All this text can do is lay everything out for individual interpretations to be made but there are definitely no answers as to how or why such a massive tragedy took place whether it be murder or suicide.
Reverend Jim Jones
The People’s Temple
At first it was believed that the deaths of 913 people in the Guyanese Jungle were a mass suicide. As the gruesome details of the last few days in what had become known as ‘Jonestown’ came to light however, the horrendous truth emerged that the deaths may not all have been voluntary, and that one man may have been responsible instead for mass murder. The deceased all belonged to a group known as ‘The People’s Temple’, led by the Reverend Jim Jones.
Jim Jones was born in Lyn, Indiana, on May 13, 1931. Lyn was a farming town, and Jones did not have many friends as a child. Home life was difficult for the family as, due to a severe lung disease, his father was unable to work and therefore relied upon only a minimal pension to maintain his family. In order to bring in some extra money for the family, Jim Jones’s mother worked in a factory. Embittered by this hardship, Jones’s father, a veteran of the First World War, began to sympathise with the racist activities of the Ku Klux Klan. This leaning always seemed strange to the young boy though, as Jones’s mother was of Cherokee Indian descent. He did not understand how his racist father could support such a relationship, and therefore saw flaws in his father’s beliefs and values.
He did not want to be a follower of this hypocritical ideology. Perhaps because he had not been shown a clear religious path by either of his parents, Jim Jones took an exceptional interest in Bible Studies at school. In all other classes he was an average student. Inspired by what he learnt and the more he came to believe in the Christian faith, the more active he became in it. When the other children would leave school together and play, Jim Jones returned home, took up his position on his parents’ front porch, and preached to the people who passed by the house.
At the age of 18, Jim decided to enrol on a religious studies course at Indiana University, and took a job as a porter at a Richmond hospital to fund this education. One year later, Jim became a pastor and also married Marceline Badwin, a nurse at the hospital. Now directly involved in the running of the church, Jim decided to introduce black worshippers into the congregation. One of his main pursuits was the running of the racially integrated church youth centre.
RESISTANCE AND DISAPPROVAL
In a segregated society such as that of Indianapolis, this was a move which met with much resistance and disapproval, not only from the bigoted members of the community, but also from the conservative affiliates of the church. Jones was not deterred however, and became even more determined to put a stop to this racism. His determination encouraged some of those who had initially wavered in their support to back him more fervently. As this support grew stronger, Jim Jones came to be seen as a leading figure in the fight for black people’s rights. His following soon became large enough to enable him to break away from his former church and set up his own, which he named ‘The People’s Temple’. It was a church for all races, and nobody was turned away. Jones prided himself on his bi-racial background and his Cherokee heritage. As a result, the area became a magnet for black people and the ethnic minorities of Indianapolis.
With the large majority of his congregation being black, Jim Jones turned to well-known, influential black preachers to guide him, and modelled his manner and performance on them. One of his mentors was Father Divine, a black preacher and faith-healer from Philadelphia. He asserted such influence over his flock, that they responded by bestowing gifts and luxuries on him. He led a very comfortable life based purely on donations and contributions from his followers. This opened Jim Jones’s eyes to what he himself may be able to achieve. He decided to put his own following to the test.
Over the course of a couple of weeks, Jones reported to the people of his church how the violence generated against him by the racists of the community and in particular, the Ku Klux Klan, was on the increase. He told them he had been attacked, his property had been vandalised, and his family were receiving threats. The stories appeared in the local press, leaked to them by Jones himself. Consequently, Jones was offered a job, fully paid, on the Human Rights Commission of Indianapolis and he received full support and backing by his followers in this role. Encouraged by the strength of this allegiance, not only of his own congregation but also of the mayor in offering him this role, Jones’s confidence grew. He soon seized what he thought would be an opportunity to test this commitment to the extreme.
JONES DISCOVERS GUYANA
America was in the throes of preparing herself for the threat of nuclear war, and millions of families were building themselves fall-out shelters. In a spoof article, a magazine responded to this nationwide panic by listing the top ten safest places in the world to be to maximise chances of survival in a nuclear war. Jones read the article in all seriousness, and his eyes fell upon Belo Horizonte in Brazil. He spoke to his congregation, telling them that he predicted wholesale nuclear destruction, but that he could lead them to a place where they would be safe. He went out ahead to explore the area, funding the trip entirely from the finances of the church. He did not like what he found though, and deemed the area unsuitable as a place to begin a new life and base his community. However, on the return journey he did stop over in Guyana for a couple of days.
To Jim Jones, Guyana was a much more viable option. A newly independent socialist democracy, it was the perfect place to live out his harmonious and socially equal ideal.
In view of this new and exciting discovery, Jim Jones returned home to an eagerly-awaiting congregation and told them that in fact, the threat of nuclear war had lessened and that consequently there was no immediate rush to move out to Brazil as he had originally planned.
Jim Jones continued his activities in The People’s Temple, embarking upon faith-healing to attract more followers to his church. News of his healing powers spread, and worshippers at the church witnessed those who claimed to have previously been sick and crippled, leap up in the middle of his sermons professing themselves to be cured of their illness or disability. No doubt these ‘miracles’ had been fixed in advance by Jim Jones, but they had the desired effect and more people came.
A CLAIM TOO FAR
But things got out of hand. Perhaps encouraged by Jones, the followers at The People’s Temple began to make claims that not only was their reverend curing the sick, but that he had actually brought no less than 40 of the faithful back from the dead. This attracted the unwanted attentions of the State Board of Psychology. Sensing the urgency and possible danger of this situation, Jim Jones gathered his followers together and fled for the Redwood Valley near Ukiah, California. It was a wise decision. As it was the mid-’60s and a haven for hippies and drop-outs, Jim Jones and The People’s Temple slipped in unnoticed and were left entirely to their own affairs.
CHARITY WORK
Wisened by the brush he had with the authorities and the negative reports he had been subjected to in the media however, Jim Jones decided to safeguard himself against the possibility of such damaging press occurring again. He ingratiated himself with the local community by telling his congregation to take unpaid charity work, and to offer their homes up to foster children. Jones himself turned his attention to influential politicians and before long had been proclaimed foreman of the County Grand Jury. His only aim in acquiring this political power, he declared, was to use it to enforce greater social equality. In order to help him, citizens were asked to make donations to The People’s Temple, which consequently became a state-registered, tax-exempt religious body.
As Jones’s finances grew, he was able to establish a new church in San Francisco for his now 7,500-strong congregation. He never failed to impress as officials and the press w
atched on to see him distributing food and care for the poor and disadvantaged on a daily basis.
As more and more people handed over their income and life savings to The People’s Temple, not only did Jones’s finances grow, but his name spread far and wide too. His attentions now turned to South America, and to the starving children he believed he could ‘help’ out there. In particular, he wanted to spread his aid to Guyana. He was supported in this endeavour not only by his own followers, but now by the politicians and civic leaders who looked to this exemplary missionary and praised his ceaseless fight for the poor and underprivileged of the world.
THE ROAD TO ‘JONESTOWN’
Perhaps carried away by his own phenomenal success however, Jim Jones began to get more and more extreme and puritanical in his views and preachings. He gave lengthy sermons about the evils of sex, and was beginning to encourage some of the married couples in the church to divorce so that he could choose more suitable partners for them from the Temple. As leader, he claimed he had the right to have sex with any of the female members he chose and forced them into many sexual acts against their will. He abused them sexually, and enjoyed watching them suffer physical abuse too. He would arrange fights, partnering children against adults to see the young ones knocked out. Some kids were tortured with cattle prods.
Yet he was still the golden boy in the eyes of the press. He kept the journalists away from some of the more sinister goings-on in the Temple by diverting their attention with the Temple Awards, huge financial rewards for reporters who had made ‘outstanding journalistic contributions to peace and public enlightenment’. The police department was also on his side, as grateful as they were for the charitable contributions he was making to the families of police officers who had lost their husbands, sons and fathers in the line of duty.
The bubble was about to burst though. News of Jim Jones’s remarkable, altruistic mission was spreading far and wide and it came to the attention of the White House that perhaps a little more unbiased investigation should be done into the activities of The People’s Temple. Knowing what probing any deeper than the superficial exterior of his mission would uncover, Jim Jones knew the time had come. The money he had been so generously sending to Guyana had in fact been used to procure a plot of land in the Guyanese Jungle, soon to be known as ‘Jonestown’. Accommodation had also been built, with space enough for Jim Jones to bring 1,000 followers. Here they would set up and live out Jim Jones’s utopia.