Jonestown was in the Northwest District of Guyana, located between Port Kaituma and Matthews Ridge.
I don’t believe I ever met the Rev. Jim Jones in person but the story of the man who established the Peoples Temple of Love in Indiana in 1955, relocated his followers to a South American jungle, then led more than 950 men, women and children to their deaths on Saturday, Nov. 18, 1978, continues to haunt me 40 years later.
Claiming political and media persecution, Jones moved his followers — more than three in four African American — from San Francisco to my native Guyana, believing it to be among the safest places for radiation fallout in the supposedly coming nuclear war. The Guyana government, fearing invasion by nearby Venezuela over a border dispute, saw advantage in having an American presence in the disputed territory. Continue reading
World Wars: Indians in the trenches: voices of forgotten army are finally to be heard
1.5 million fought with the British and 34,000 died. Now their sacrifice in the face of prejudice is being recognised
They were the forgotten voices of the first world war: 1.5 million men, mostly illiterate villagers from northern India, fighting under the command of colonial masters who repaid their bravery and sacrifices with brutality and prejudice.
More Indians fought with the British from 1914 to 1918 than the combined total of Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and South African troops. Some 34,000 Indian soldiers were killed on battlefields in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. But the part they played in the war has been largely whitewashed from history.
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