Transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.
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(Note: This tape was one of the 53 tapes initially withheld from public disclosure.)
Part 1
November 9. Thursday. Elections in the United States. Charles Diggs, the black Democratic congressman from Detroit, won a commanding victory, just one month after he was convicted of 29 counts of fraud and sentenced to thirty— 175 years in jail. He will serve another term as co— congressman for Detroit, even though he will be inside a jail cell.
Cuba’s foreign minister says Cuban will help fight any South African attack on Angola. There is ro— rumor afloat throughout the African continent that USA, acting indirectly through the Union of South Africa, plans an invasion against Angola. Any violation of Angola’s borders, he said, that is, the foreign minister of Cuba, would be a violation of Cuba’s borders. There has been a speculation on the part of Angola that they will be attacked by South African forces, as well as rumors running rife through the continent.
In Ghana, the head of state has declared a state of emergency in an attempt to combat the wave of strikes there. All strikes have been made illegal, and in case of trouble, all police leaves are cancelled. Ghana, spelled G-H-A-N-A, is the place that W.E.B. DuBois, the great scholar, of which [Vladimir] Lenin quoted much in his writing about capital, went to make his home at 91 years of age, and spent the last four years of his life, with his wi— with his wife, until his decease at 95.
Thousands of police in Italy are searching in— are searching the countryside southeast of Rome after the latest terrorist attack, in which four people, one a prosecutor, were killed, all officials of rank. It is being noted as the most violent episode since the kidnapping and murder of [former Prime Minister] Aldo Moro last March. Correspondents of the (tape interference) news bureau say it bears all the (tape interference) Red raid success by the Red Brigade.
Supporters of [Indian leader] Indira G— Gandhi have been hailing her parliamentary victory as an important step to her eventual return to national power. She (tape interference) parliamentary victory by a decisive majority in spite of framed criminal sentences hanging over her. In the face of concerted effort by the ruling party to see that she did not get back in Parliament again, and in fact, be placed in jail. After defeat in the general election 20 months ago, she won by the landslide majority this time.
President [Idi] Amin of Uganda said that his troops now occupying several hundred square miles of Tanzanian territory will withdraw only if Tanzania will agree to certain conditions. He is making the Organization of Africa Union to (stumbles over words)— asking them, rather, to give assurance that Tanzania will not invade Uganda. It has been worded from reliable sources that the Soviet Union has played a great part in the peace-making between Uganda and Tanzania.
Thus ends the commentary of the news today. There’s not that much that is of vital importance. Another sad (tape interference, only discernible word is “castration”) children, of slicing of minority children’s (unintelligible word, sounds like “breast”) throughout the major cities of United States has become almost a cult by various mobs of white racists. (Pause) Does not appear that America’s social health is in good standing. Thank you, and much love.
Part 2
—1978. The military government in Iran has stepped up its campaign to settle public oppositi— opposition against the Shah [Mohammed Reza Pahlavi], imposed upon them in a dreadful murder of their president [Premier Mohammad Mosaddegh, who was overthrown] by the CIA. One move is they are arresting of many public officials and numerous prominent rich Iranians. Among the latest to find himself behind bars is the former prime minister. In addition, the reigning officials have also arrested the United Press International. It has always been cooperative with reactionary circles, so it shows how far right Tehran has gone. Tehran correspondent has printed something that has been offensive to his excellency, the Shah. No reason has been given for his detention.
The Israeli-Egyptian peace talks enter their fourth week today, with one major issue still unresolved, the linkage between a bilateral peace treaty and future negotiations on the unoc— on the occupied West Bank that belonged to Jordan, who was not included in the peace treaty talks at Camp David that was held illegally by President [Jimmy] Carter, and Gaza Strip, that was conquered by Egypt, or cop— cop— conquered from Egypt by Israeli aggressive forces. The matter will be discussed today during the meeting between the U.S. Secretary of State [Cyrus Vance] and the Egyptian delegation of the right-wing regime.
In Rhodesia, or what we would call Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwean Patriotic Front have taken two more political supporters, high-ranking, sell-out supporters of the executive council of Bishop [Abel] Muzorewa, head of the Methodist Church, who, only one of three black leaders joined in the transitional and illegal government of white supremacist [Prime Minister] Ian Smith. They have been reportedly put on trial and killed by the Zimbabwean Patriotic Court. More than 50 such supporters of the transitional and illegal government have been killed in recent days. President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia has charged Rhodesia and South Africa with being responsible for the racial violence in the capital of Lusaka in his own country, Zambia, earlier this week. Dr. Kaunda said they provoked the vigilant— vigilante attacks on white residents, because, in the words— in his own words, the racist regimes of southern Africa do not want Zambia to build a mushal— multi-racial peaceful society, and they were well on the road to building one. So they sent provocateurs, secret Uncle Tom black provocateur mercenaries into the capital to start violence against white residents who had been living peacefully and happily in the capital, the beautiful capital of Lusaka, Zambia. The Zambian president acknowledged that innocent whites had been victimized, but he appealed that— to them not to be bitter, because he said Zambia has no intentions to create racial unrest and to remember the many, many years that blacks had been oppressed and even murdered without trial, before black government took power.
President [Julius] Nyerere of Tanzania claims that all the occurrences in the last few weeks were carefully planned by President Idi Amin of Uganda. All plans to seize Tanzanian land. There is speculation in social democratic countries and socialist left countries that there have been CIA attempts to exploit the differences between Tanzania, a socialist government, and Idi Amin, who definitely has been pro-Soviet and Cuba. He said it was not something that had happened, said the president of Tanzania, on the spur of the moment, and that Idi Amin has been very clever in terms of using the media and other public opinion outlets to deceive what is really happening. President Nyerere, socialist who has been a champion of black liberation in Africa, said it is all an orchestrated plan to hold onto Tanzanian land. Nyerere will continue to direct war efforts to drive Ugandans out of U— Tanzanian territory. But many believe that actions attributed to the Tanzanians that have stirred up the Ugandans have actually been CIA mercenaries. Tanzanians troops will launch a major drive against the Ugandans, so BBC reports today.
Representatives of the world’s ten wealthiest nations are meeting in Brussels, Belgium, to discuss financial aid for Zaire that is about to falter. The Belgian foreign minister said his country was preparing a new relief effort to help stabilize Zaire’s economy currently burdened by overseas debts and inflation. Rightwing imperialist regimes, the lackeys of US imperialism have been somewhat hesitant to hi— assist President Mobo— Mobutu [Sese Seko], because of his close alliance with Marxist-Leninist regime of Angola. But Belgium praised and— Mombo— Mobutu government for its reconciliation with Angola, a break with the United States, a strange, rather, break, and also praised him for the cooperation that he had given the International Monetary Fund. There are some predictions about the way the International Monetary Fund, which are being handled these days, that could be easily stated, according to sources of the left, that it— IMF is not directly being orchestrated by the United States imperialist.
The League of Red Cross Societies at Geneva, Switzerland, has appealed desperately for nearly one million dollars to help save two million people, who they say are facing starvation in Nwala (phonetic) region near Ethiopia, due to the awful drought created by what many reports have said was CI efforts— CIA efforts at cloud-seeding.
Thus ends the reading and commentary of the news for Friday, November 10, 1978.
Racial riots continue to be more rampant than usual in USA. Also, we have had terrible setbacks. Merv Dymally, Lieutenant Governor of California, was defeated in a racist campaign. Senator Clark [Dick Clark, D-Iowa], the only senator to speak out against black oppression by US imperialist, were sounded defeated. All black leaders, for the most part, were defeated, except Congressman Diggs of Detroit. Senator Brooks [Edward Brooke (R-Massachusetts)] was soundly defeated in a stronghold he had built for many years, but he was redoundly [soundly] beat by a rightwing opposition white man [Paul Tsongas]. So the move in the United States is clearly rightward, and the move is in clear racist terms, because most of the black congressmen were eliminated from the Black Caucus in a US racial campaign.
Remember, we are still in a state of siege. We are going to be under siege beginning Tuesday, when the first of the group we have found will be arriving by commercial airlines. We are hoping and feeling that the Uni— the Guy— Guyana government will block them from staying longer. But they are racial— racist element through and through, though mixed with black and white. They are cooperating with Congressman [Leo] Ryan, who has voted sharply in racist terms and fascist terms, who is a supporter of [President Augusto] Pinochet of Chile. So we will have to be very wise and very alert. Some may be coming by plane. We know those limited number of about 15 that will be arriving Tuesday night by plane. But there’s still persistent rumor from our reliable infiltrators that they are planning to come in secretly up river. So we must unify and forget what little differences and disagreements and uh, what we may feel are deprivations, and realize that we are under the onslaught of a direct move of a mercenary fascist effort of the United States of America. I love you very deeply, and will be seeing you in people’s rally shortly. You can discuss the news there in the beginning part of the session. Thank you, and I love you so very much.
Part 3
(Several moments of muffled of unintelligible monologue with delayed echo.)
Part 4
—Saturday, 1978. The Iranian opposition leader, (unintelligible name, sounds like Kardeen Sajabee), (tape distortion) orders Moscow, and has always followed a policy in the terms of foreign policy carefully one not to in any way irritate Soviet Union, vowed to continue crippling strikes against the shah, who was imposed by the CIA in a bloody murder-coup that ended up in the killing of the president and the staff of the democracy that once was in Iran. He vows, the opposition leader, (unintelligible name), that he will oppose the shah’s rule in every way possible today. He rejected any compromises in the new military government. His remarks were made after his return to Iran from Paris, where he had talks with exile leader (makes two attempts to pronounce [Ayatollah] Khomeini). He called on the Iranian people to continue fighting to bring down the government and return the country to Islamic socialist leadership. This is a very brave stand, a stand that is unfamiliar to some of you, because only yesterday, hundreds of even prestigious and rich, well-to-do Iranians were in prison and shot without trial.
Some of you have never known the crisises that we had during the first days, and unfortunately, you are not prepared— you are not prepared fully to know your commitment. And only until you are prepared to die for what you believe, are you prepared to live for it.
In Angola, at least 24 people have been killed in an explosion in the country’s second largest city. Angola is a Marxist-Leninist nation led by Prime Minister [President] Agostinho Neto, who was enabled to win the victory for the people by direct aid and substance from Moscow and Cuba. The explosion occurred in a marketplace, and many more people — perhaps over 100 — are injured, and many critical. It was an act of the CIA, according to even the BBC. An official communiqué from the Angolan capital of Luanda speaks of a wave of terrorism and sabotage in the major cities of Angola. Angola’s defense minister, in a speech earlier this week, accused South Africa, with the imperialist US backing, are preparing for aggression against Angola again, an invasion. The recent occurrences of disaster and violence, the communiqué implied, are the work of the foreign provocateurs, particularly the CIA and its agents. Moscow and Cuba pledges that they will put their lives on the line for Angola.
There are reports of new fighting in the central African country of Chad, just below Libya, on the great, vast, rich continent of Africa. Between French-backed imperialist government troops and revolutionaries supported by Libya, a modern socialist state under the direction of Colonel [Moammar] Khadafy of Libya, who continues to pour in financial and military support, aid of the Chod— the Chad Liberation Movement Frolinat, which represents at least 90 percent of the people. This is the horror of the governments that are allied with US imperialism. They usually represent no more than ten percent, at best, the ruling class of the people.
The Roman Catholic Church in Chile says, most of the 1600 people who have disappeared since the military coup in 1973 have died by torture in the prisons. This is the Pinochet regime that the Congressman Ryan and our 40 ex-members — some of them not members at all — are coming (Pause) as a so-pu-— so-called liberation effort for us from socialism, if necessary, by killing us to free us. A very ridiculous rationale. It’s hard for us to conceive that our people could support a man who, (Pause) like Ryan, is a strong Pinochet supporter, a fascist supporter of this year’s budget. Committee of Catholic Bishops say that they have come to the absolute conclusion that all the missing people have been held by the security forces and have been tortured in gruesome ways, and finally murdered. (Pause) We are in a battle, and that battle is never easy, and we must be prepared to give all, and do not think that these people coming have any mercy left in them. They have sold their soul out to American capitalism, to material things, to the songs of partying, the ones that have remained that have been able to stay out of jails, some of them coming have had even bouts with the law, but they have chosen to compromise their conscience and join the forces of imperialism, and come to destroy us. (Pause)
Several striking government workers in Ghana — where, I mentioned last evening, W.E.B. DuBois and his wife left America at the year of 91, his age of 91, deciding he could no longer in good conscience live in that country of USA, and pay taxes to it, so he left for Ghana that was then a socialist nation under [President Kwame] Nkrumah. Unfortunately Nkrumah was later forced out, but that indeed fortunately, W.E.B. Dubois was allowed to live out his life there, and pass four years later. His wife has later moved from Ghana, because it is now a rightist regime undermined and overthrown by the CIA, and she is a world traveler and a spokesperson and a most avid nature, even though she is in advanced years, for international socialism. Several striking government workers in Ghana have lost their jobs after defying a government order to go back to work, even though it meant imprisonment.
Many of you still have not come to terms, as I said, with imprisonment, or death. In all purposes, you would count on victory. You must always be the victor, in order for you to be committed to socialism. You must be always aware of benefits, rather than the fact there can be sacrifices. But I find it very selfish to think totally of victory, when I have seen Pinochet murder Dr. [Salvador] Allende, great d— medical doctor, a very gentle man who was the president of Chile, elected by the people, murdered when he could have compromised, and they would have left him leave the country to sanctuary. I find it difficult to expect just good things, when Patrice Lumumba was drug for miles, tortured, and then finally killed. It find it impossible to expect just good times when [South African activist] Steve Biko was tortured for some (draws out word) 16 days, night and day, and then drug in a car for 600 miles, and his body was hardly nothing left but bones. I could go on and go on and go on, the number that have fallen. Martin Luther King. Malcolm X shot down, his head split open in front of his children, in his thirties. I cannot think that I am above these people, so I am prepared for anything today or tomorrow might bring.
Anyway, the military government in Ghana has launched a recruiting drive for replacements. Earlier this week, Ghana’s head of state, Lieutenant General Fred Akuffo, declared a state of emergency, when the country’s industry and public services were paralyzed by left and liberal walkouts from the repressive regime, where their wages are not sufficient to even give them food enough to live on. The workers were demanding just minimum pay increases, and what you might say livable working conditions.
Starting tomorrow, we hope to be able to get Radio Moscow again. Unfortunately, we’ve have the power cut off in the middle of the day, and (stumbles over words), it has enabled us to be able to make contact with the Soviet Union that gives another side of the story. Thank you for your commitment to socialism. I hope you are (Pause) giving it with a full dedication, not based on benefits, but based upon rightness, not based on living forever, because great socialists like Paul Robeson who gave the most courageous moments of their existence could not live in America. When he came home because of a needy sister in Philadelphia and tried to help her, he could not last one year. America’s racism, its apathy, its violence drove him mad, though he was a man who had his senses all of his life, all of his 70 years. But he died in less than a year in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after enjoying peace, security and all opportunities of work and recreation in the Soviet Union for many years. This is a picture that has not clearly enough come home to many of you, who are citizens of Jonestown, that USA is an imperialist cancer, a disease that has reached out and managed to cause two out of three babies to go to bed hungry, that some people in United States might be able to have a television in a car, to pacify them for the moment, to keep them sleep, like the pig ready for the slaughter, because the slaughter will come, because the US dollar is falling, the economics of capitalism are indeed in their final stages. Meeting in Brussels right now going on with the major capitalist nations, there’s quite a rift between the European capitalists and Japanese capitalists and the USA capitalists, because capitalism was doomed to fail. It was a successor to feudalism, but now in the light of socialism, it is antiquated and unable to meet the needs of the nearly four billion people on this planet. Thank you for your attention. I love you very much, and do a great deal of reading and studying, and look for Teresa’s implementation and [Richard] Tropp’s implementation of the news also in tonight’s classes. Thank you very much. I love you with all my heart. Thank you so much.
(Long period of silence)
Part 5
(Slow, emphatic, weary) Attention, for perhaps one of the most important announcements you have ever heard. I am giving you the free night that I just authorized spoken over this medium. I urge however that you do not wander in any way out of the central area of community, and keep a strict curfew after the entertainment. We have no question now that our ex-members are being funded and are CIA-connected. This first trip alone, just the legal part of it, is $100,000. If you have any mistaken feelings to look back to America, (Pause, movement away from mike), if you have any idea that America has anything to offer, you need to— perhaps you need to hear the housing director that I’ve— when I’ve prophesied, I told him, the end had come for minorities. I’m just thinking of it spontaneously, so I don’t know that I’ll find it offhand. I’d quote it just word for word, he sent me a letter (Pause) and saying, he said, “I hate to say, Reverend Jones, that all you said about what was going to happen to minorities in America is taking place before our eyes.” But if you were to make the mistake to assume that you could go up to one of these people, they might kill you. Do not think that they would interpret you as a friend, no matter what you said. They are highly paranoid, extremely vicious, filled with a raging hate, because that’s what comes from guilt. Our infiltrator has informed us that they have dreams almost nightly. (Pause) They have dreams almost nightly, to the last person, and they have guilt, tremendous guilt about what they’ve done. They’ll even admit it. (Pause) So it’s as if something has taken over them, that they have to destroy this group, and myself particularly, in order for their guilt to go away. And all that they will succeed in doing, if they were to achieve that goal, which they cannot destroy all of us, is that they would then have to turn against themselves, because they’re people linked together who never cared for one another, and in fact, viciously hated each other. (Pause) As the housing authority director, Walter Scott, Second Executive Director, writes: “Sorry to say that the predictions you made about blacks and other minorities in America have come true.” And he underlines it. I don’t know to read other things. He wishes us well, and wishes he were here. But do not make the mistake— there may be even hired mercenaries coming in also. Katsaris [Steven Katsaris, father of Maria Katsaris] has made plans along that line. So amongst those that you might think are former members that might take you in, any move would be sudden death, if you move towards them. So stay inside the community circle. When you return to America, if there is an America left, and I don’t see how it can be much longer after reading the terrible things that the deputy— the director of the San Francisco housing has said, Merv Dymally and all of the blacks that have gone down to defeat, Senator Brooke, all the spokesmen for black liberation, like Senator Clark, who said that the Cubans had done a just thing in Africa trying to help them gain liberation from slavery. People are jobless by the tens of thousands in every major city. There’s nothing to look back for, but some of you are almost like robots. You’re coded in by the pattern of living that was in USA. Its music that was conditioning and hypnotizing your brain, is gone for the most past, and you miss it. The sick side of you miss it. Little so-called creature comforts that you think you would still be having, many of our former members are now in jail, and some are dead. Some have been sentenced to death. Two, in fact. I just want to warn you extremely, warn you extremely, do not move to them, no matter how friendly they may seem. If they were to get in by some rare mistake, the security will be very alert, but each of you must be very alert. We’ve known that they’re operating on three levels: legal, paralegal, and totally mercenary. They have said that they would kill to see that just some got out of here, or that Jonestown would crumble. That’s always what happens to people who do wrong. Their guilt becomes too impossible to bear, so they have to destroy the things that’s causing them their guilt. Like Mike Cartmell said, every night he has a dream of me in the room pointing my finger at him, making him feel guilty, my black glasses. He told that to our infiltrator, and he sees lightning come out of my mouth that touches him and frightens him. This is a sick group of cookies. At this point, we do not know what response the government will be able to take, because of their economics. We do have the assurance that this will not be a tourist area for the people. The right-wing Ryan, who supported Pinochet in the murder of the pre— the precious president of Chile, Dr. Allende, and 1600 this year who have been tortured and murdered, and have disappeared. They don’t even have any records, because they weren’t arrested officially, just picked up, kidnapped in the night.
You do not know what you are dealing with. I’m the greatest friend you will ever have, and I am trying on every level to protect this community, but I warn you, do not, of all times, try to go out in the unknown areas now. They could be even lurking. The airplane that flew so low yesterday trying to determine my location for kidnapping purposes. Truly we have power in our unity, but so many of you are always looking back. You weaken the power that I can give you on the extra plane, the higher plane. You’ve got to be very grateful now, and very joyous and very friendly and very warm with each other. Unfortunately, a number of back-biting and complaining has brought an undue amount of illness upon some of you. So I encourage you, from a heart that will never ever be seen like my heart again, a heart that loves you and cares for you to the very fullest degree, a heart that sent our precious Klingman child clear across the continent of South America that he could get um, medication before it would be too late, that he would be permanently a cripple and blind and then deaf. We see him return to our midst a totally renewed person practically, and the renewal will continue. These fa— these plane fares to other countries are fantastically heavy on us. We have seven more that are scheduled. So we want to be sure that we are very, very grateful, that you are looking for every point of gratitude, so that the mind is high and the faith is right, because I can reach you for love and protection no more than you allow me to reach you for love and protection. I can reach you in justice and judgment, but that’s not my concern. I love you. I have no intention or desire to hurt you. I do have to protect the community against one or two individuals, if they intend to try to hurt the best thing that ever happened to us, as our precious sister sang so beautifully last evening, “Over Yonder.”
And I want to remind you, this is a free night. I’m trying to reduce tensions. It’s very dangerous to reduce structure and loosen structure when we are under attack. Their plans for the mercenaries, we do not know. We don’t know if it is taking place now, or if it will start when the legal actions start, I mean their legal entry, which can’t be denied, because the ones that are coming have not been in any trouble currently with the law, though some of our ex-members, and plenty of them have been. So I wanted to warn you again and again and again, to be together with the community, to stay in the sight of the community, do not leave the central area, do not get away from this circle of protection, because they would not hesitate. We have seen what they did before, when they tried to kill one of my sons. We know, when the provocateur came here and spent the days telling all of his plans. We are very assured that they do not have mortar, like he had then, and rockets, ready to blow us to pieces, even if it only saved a few. But they will be— some will be equipped with hand weapons, and you will not—
End of side 1
Side 2
(Exchanges of unintelligible radio traffic, consisting of transmissions from Jonestown, with echo as on rest of tape; tone of voice is periodically upset and pleading)
Tape originally posted July 2001