Jonestown memorial unveiled on 30th anniversary

[November 19, 2008]  OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- On the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown disaster Tuesday, organizers of an annual memorial service displayed the first panels of a 36-foot-long stone wall that is to be inscribed with the names of more than 900 victims of the violence in Guyana.

In the years since, efforts to create a monument have dragged on for lack of funding.

But the Rev. Jynona Norwood on Tuesday pulled covers from two shiny black granite slabs on sturdy trailers parked at Evergreen Cemetery, where more than 400 unidentified and unclaimed bodies of Jonestown's victims are buried in a mass grave.

Mourners gasped and tearful survivors scattered red and black carnations on the panels.

"Touch their names because touching their names is very healing," said Norwood, who lost 27 relatives in the 1978 mass murders and suicides orchestrated by Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones. "Finally, they have a resting place."

The work for the memorial, however, is far from complete.

Despite a $30,000 down payment, another $70,000 or more must be raised to complete the 7-foot-tall monument with an 8-foot red granite central panel bearing the names of 305 children who perished in Jonestown.

The crowd of almost 200 -- including temple survivors and relatives of the victims -- was one of the largest since Norwood started holding services to honor Jonestown's dead.

When Jones ordered his followers to commit suicide, more than 900 members drank cyanide-laced, grape-flavored punch. Others were shot by guards loyal to Jones.

In recent years, more survivors have been attending the service, as it has become more widely accepted that they were ordinary people betrayed by a charismatic minister who lured them to an integrated church with programs for the poor.

The carnage occurred after 15 members defected during Rep. Leo Ryan's fact-finding mission to Jonestown.

Temple gunmen killed Ryan, three journalists and a defector on a nearby airstrip -- and all of their names will be on the monument, Norwood said.

But the minister made clear during the service that Jones will not have his name in granite.

"To put Jim Jones' name on that wall is an insult ... to all the dead," she said.

Jim Jones Jr., the minister's adopted son, disagrees.

"The tragedy is we're villianizing Jim Jones," he said. "Jim Jones was also a victim, of his own madness. We need to memorialize all the bodies, as a great loss."

[Associated Press; By TIM REITERMAN]

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.