[handwriting: “Jim’s copy”]
Peoples Temple Agri Project
P.O. Box 893
Georgetown
Republic of Guyana
4th January, 1978
Honorable Prime Minister Forbes Burnham
Public Buildings
Georgetown
Republic of Guyana
Dear Comrade Prime Minister:
We wish to bring to your attention the conspiratorial custody harassments which have been a major source of the lowering of morale of our people because of the indecisive actions taken here.
Joseph Mazor, the ex-con with the ten year criminal record, has now been proven to be a special agent of Interpol and works hand-in-hand with other clandestine agencies. Yet this fact has all but been ignored and Mazor’s knowledge of the weak point in Guyana’s refusal to take a position of non-jurisdiction on court matters has opened up a spectrum.of activity which could bring Mazor, Interpol, and his covert connections right into Guyanese territory which is exactly what you are trying to avoid.
Three matters have so far been brought forward by Mazor. All three similar in nature, similar in procedure, and if no action is taken by you, could similarly be pursued in court in the same manner as the matter was of Jim Jones’ son, John. This is bleeding our finances: taking money away from the project.
OLIVER:
The parents of William and Bruce Oliver arrived in Guyana two weeks ago over protests from their sons that they were both happy here and that they did not want to return to the U.S. Foreign Minister [Fred] Wills handled the entire matter very well. Because all of the custody matters form a pattern, we mention the Olivers to enhance your understanding.
Both sons are happily married with their wives on the project. In fact, William was in Georgetown for four weeks going through the procedure to get married. That is all the proof needed (by the U.S. or anyone else) that he was here by choice. He is 6’2″ tall and weighs over 200 pounds. He walked freely up and down the streets of Georgetown and could easily have requested aid to return to the U.S. if he wanted to return. So why this rushed trip to Guyana to whisk away their sons?
Reliable sources have told us that Mazor paid their way and gave them encouragement that the Guyana government would assist them in every way possible in retrieving their sons. This was also supported by the father of member Maria Katsaris (24 year old woman) who went back telling people friendly to us in official positions in the U.S., that officials in the
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Guyana government were saying that we are a bunch of fanatics. People like Ambassador [Laurence] Mann were quoted whenever he was not supportive of us. This we know to be an attempt by Katsaris and Mazor to sow seeds of division and to make Guyana look like a fool. It would be far better (and self-serving for Guyana) to present it like it is: political conspiracy to destroy one of the most progressive movements in the entire U.S.
It is obvious that some in the government feel pressured by our presence. It is inconceivable to us that people like the Olivers could get so far if this were not so. The father of the two sons has a criminal record and has been involved in credit card forgery. Mrs. Oliver is a crazy woman and she openly stated she was doing this for money. She had to be held off by four people from trying to murder Jim’s wife, Marceline. They used violence already and are probably trying to force us into some violent reaction with their threats.
An American judge told the Olivers, “I’ll give you the order (for custody), but I’ll tell you, it amounts to nothing.” He was referring to jurisdiction and not to the boy’s age (who was 17 at the time), because in California law a married person is an emancipated adult. If a U.S. judge can be convinced of this point of law, then why is there such a reversed opinion from Dr. [Ptolemy] Reid’s original stance about Jim’s son, “that they (U.S.) have no jurisdiction and it will never go to a Guyana court?”
Neither the Oliver’s nor their representatives represent Third World opinion. Thier lawyer is known as a joke in the legal profession and is called King of the Con. He will jump on any bandwagon to make a buck. The Olivers are anti-socialist and pro-conservative in the U.S. yet this harassment again reaches down here, forcing your government to have to confront us with yellow journalist lies.
A picture of the wife of Bruce Oliver was in the Guyana Chronicle assisting Dr. Ng-a-Fook. She is a dental technician from a more affluent background, but they both have found a good life here. This is where Jim and everyone else wants to be.
Our people’s incentives to work would be destroyed if we go through legal battles on the socialist side of the world. We have endured 25 years of hell for standing against injustice. We have spent U.S.$50,000 in legal fees. This money could be used to improve medical care in the interior and save babies like the ones brought to us everyday [every day] from the local community. We can’t do both, moreover, we won’t be able to sustain ourselves and pay legal costs.
GRIFFITH/TRUSS:
Mary Griffith has been rearing her granddaughter, Dana Truss, since Dana was a baby because the mother is a drug addict and a prostitute with brain damage from overdosing on drugs. Now, all of a sudden, this mentally ill daughter, who abandoned her child turns up a concerned mother and wants her 8 year old daughter back. This is so blatantly a set-up situation. If she comes down here, it will be paid through the same means as the Olivers: Joseph Mazor.
Mary Griffith’s family and the Truss’s have been threatening Jim’s wife and any member coming in or going out of the Temple door in the U.S. to the point that we had to get police protection.
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These people are mentally disturbed. The members of the Griffith family here can tell you (not only is the grandmother here, but two grown sons and another daughter are here also). When Mary sold a piece of property in the U.S. a few months ago, her daughter and son went into the house in the middle of the night and padlocked the house after it was already sold. They do not behave in a rational manner.
Our people have said they will not let this woman’s granddaughter be taken from her. The Griffith’s are good workers on the project. We cannot deal with people like this or give in to their demands, as you cannot back down to the U.S. You can see from history that more is gained in the long run by those who don’t back down.
We have endured a lot because of our loyalty to you, but if there is too much pressure we will look elsewhere. Jim does not want to be placated. Our people will never let him go back to the U.S., but he needs to know your position to enable him to plan our future.
JIM JONES’ SON, JOHN STOEN:
Jim Jones has a devotion to our people that goes even farther than his own blood son. He stoód more resolutely behind the Olivers and Griffiths than that of his son, because he would not have put his movement or his beloved new home in Guyana through the pressure of this custody action were it not clearly proven that his son’s mother [Grace Stoen] was unfit, exploiting a child’s life for monetary gain and vengence.
We have absolute documented proof that she is at the helm of this conspiracy, which by her own words, she says, “hopes will drive Jim to kill himself and his son, so his socialist seed would be eradicated from the earth.”
Her vengence stems from Jim not marrying her. Although Jim’s wife, Marceline, was willing to permit him, and Jim would have gone through the hell of that marriage for our people’s sake, our board and the leaders of our movement felt it would affect the morale of our membership and result in a loss of support. Jim tried to explain this in a kind way but she turned on Jim with viciousness and took it out on their son.
She picked up with the first man she could find, a racist man named Walter Jones (who is no relation to Jim). She knew the child hated him and was terrified of him from an ordeal where he beat the child unmercifully. She topped all sadism our group has ever heard of by locking their son in the garage and making him witness a sexual act between her and this man. She also sublimated sexually with the child in a gross manner to torture Jim. She said cruel and rejecting things to John to the point that the boy openly talked of wanting to die at the tender age of “2”.
The child has these incidents indelibly printed in his mind, but the trauma is over now. John is happy in this lovely new environment with his father. John’s life is full, happy, and complete now that he is spared from his mother’s seductively sick and sordidly manipulative example of motherhood. Our psychological counsellor and Jim have observed that John does not want and obviously does not need to discuss her any longer, although Jim always tells John that his mother cared.
Jim has said he would have withdrawn from the custody battle if his child’s mother were a reasonably normal mother. He said he would have
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stayed out of his child’s life because his socialist values would cause conflicts for the child in his mother’s racist, reactionary family. They have always hated Jim’s guts and taken it out on John. Therefore he could not send this child, or any child, to this fate worse than death. Our people would never permit such a thing even when Jim made this noble gesture for the sake of our movement and Guyana.
John is a bright, sensitive child taking after his father in many ways. He considers himself Guyanese. He has a deep concern about racism, is very knowledgeable about socialism and knows all about Guyana’s modern and historical struggle against racism and colonialism.
It is this very loyalty to all people that makes Jim more unusual in ability to take the pain of leadership in this movement which is on two fronts at the same time.
DEMANDS NEED TO BE STOPPED
Please don’t let people push us with any more demands. We want to know: are we going to have to go through answering these yellow journalism lies on both sides of the world? We had hoped that the anti-Guyana propaganda that circulates in the U.S. would help you to identify with the harassment we are going through.
Jim is having a considerable amount of trouble with his heart and I am sure you would not find the movement so productive if Jim dies, thus we beg you to give him what he needs to build during these crucial stages of transition. He is constantly building new leadership to carry it on, but we a-re not ready yet. This project is a model of productivity in every sphere of activity, as has been observed by guests from every part of Guyana and many parts of the world. Impressions by guests have often been written in newspapers praising our community as a model and as inspiring.
Living does not mean that much to us if we have to go through harassment here as we did in the U.S. You are setting precedents with these custody matters which will open us up to every right-wing stooge. People like Tim Stoen, who is the legal father of Jim’s son and who has joined the conspiracy, should not be allowed to get pas the airport. (The same is more true for Grace Stoen who has been part of the conspiracy since its inception.) Tim Stoen’s purpose for coming here is not to support this unfit mother (as he himself has called her unfit), but rather to get grist for the media to write up an emotional sensational story which will depict Guyana as an oppressor depriving a mother (even though she abandoned the child) of having her child. If people like Tim Stoen are not stopped, there will be no end of people paid by the conspiracy. They must clearly be told there is no jurisdiction here and that it is a waste of time going through any process. The money to send people to Guyana to harass us with custody matters is all coming from the same source. The harassment will no doubt continue until a posture of non-cooperation is clearly shown from the start with these cases, on the basis of the nonjurisdiction. Any cooperation will give them encouragement to keep this up.
One final matter that concerns all of us for which it would be extremely helpful to receive an expedient answer (which we have not been given despite former attempts). Our people do not understand why the arrest orders are not immediately revoked. These orders necessarily keep
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[first seven lines of paragraph unreadable] 4. Jim has missed the opportunity to meet with friends and people who are helping our situation who were in the Caribbean.
Despite all assurances we’ve had to the contrary, this makes it look as if we do not have much support from the country we came to serve. It has been impossible to explain such a thing as arrest orders to our people and we humbly beseech you to resolve this for us.
Our productivity is greatly affected by the level of morale of our people. We are duty-bound to communicate things of this nature with everyone in our membership so they can be part of the decision-making and can totally participate in the decisions that affect our lives. A promise was made long ago that everyone would be included on all matters affecting the organization. This is how we operate and this is what has developed the high level of trust in our leadership. Understandably, good news increases our production, whereas low morale causes a decrease. Our cassava crew, after hearing that the matter with the Olivers was resolved, quadrupled their production.
Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to read this. We appreciate your service to the group and we will honor our friendship by producing more in the coming year when all of these conspiratorial matters are stopped.
Co-operatively yours,
Sharon Amos
Coordinating Secretary
cc: Dr. Reid
Min. Wills
Min. Mingo