[Editor’s note: Minor typographical errors corrected throughout]
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STATEMENTS CARRIED IN THE PRESS REGARDING KATHY HUNTER’S TRIP TO GUYANA
Sunday, May 28, Ukiah Daily Journal article: stated she arrived May 18th and was taken into protective custody two days later.
Refutation: If this were true why then when she talked to the American Consul a couple of days prior to her departure, did she not mention the alleged matter of protective custody, and instead only state that she was ill.
Same article: states that the Guyana government invited her to come down and report on Peoples Temple.
Refutation: No one in the government even knew she was coming, and then – according to the Ministry of Home Affairs – she lied to a government official in order to obtain approval to stay. This is why she became “persona non grata” in Guyana.
Same article: quotes her as saying she was “…subjected to harassment by a squad of interrogators.”
Refutation: The only contacts that took place with her were social meetings involving two members of Peoples Temple who came at her invitation. She was inebriated, by all appearances, on two occasions. The conversations centered on the work and activities of Peoples Temple in Guyana, and an invitation was extended to Kathy Hunter to visit the Temple’s agricultural project. She refused because she said she wanted to see Jim Jones, whom she was told was upriver at the time. (Peoples Temple received no notification that Hunter was coming to Guyana which she admitted was not given.) When invited to come to the project anyway, Hunter responded, “Unless I can see Jim Jones there, it will not go well for you.”
Sunday, May 28, Santa Rosa Press Democrat article: states that Hunter turned down the invitation to see the project in Jonestown and quotes her as saying that “everything was sweetness and light” until she turned down the invitation by the church to be a guest in Jonestown.
Contradiction: Editorial and Sunday, May 28 issue of Ukiah Daily Journal (whose husband is Kathy Hunter’s husband): “The reporter had every right to visit Jonestown.”
Same editorial: “They posted a guard outside her hotel door.” (The ed. implied that the guard was for her protection.)
Contradiction: (same editorial): “The government, after the reporter had been there for only a few days, advised her that she was persona non grata.”
Sunday, May 28, issue of Ukiah Daily Journal: Carries Hunter’s statement that positive statements issued by Peoples Temple about Jonestown are propaganda.
Refutation: Every government official and visitor from Guyana and other countries who has been to the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project in Jonestown has had only praise for the people and program existing there. No one yet has left with a negative impression out of many hundreds who have visited.