[Editor’s note: This statements appear on pages 228-229 of FBI FOIA Section I-1. The pages have no further identification beyond the folder number.]
April 18, 1978
To the Members of the Press:
Please find enclosed a copy of the transcript of the statement that was made to the press on Monday, April 17, at Attorney Charles Garry’s office. The statement was read by Harriet Tropp, a Temple member at the Agricultural/ Medical mission in Guyana, via radio phone patch.
There are a few additional things that ought to be noted in connection with the charges that have been made against us by a self-styled group of “Concerned Relatives” of Temple members in Guyana. In the first place, we do not have guards nor gates nor fences. The enclosed article from the Guyana Chronicle, the nation’s largest newspaper, describes the national cultural event of April 1 in the nation’s capital in which over 100 Temple members participated enthusiastically. All the participants from Jonestown travelled to the capital by different routes: some by boat, some by plane. They went there freely, and they returned freely. There was a city-wide power blackout during the event. The government put emergency power into the auditorium so the Temple program — which included dancing, singing, skits, cultural displays and movies of the project — could continue. Obviously, the Temple members who were staying with all sorts of friends throughout the capital city for the several-day event, are doing what they want to be doing. During the black out, or at any time during their stay in town, they could have departed for the U.S. Embassy, had they desired to do so.
The fact is, there is tremendous freedom of movement at the Agricultural/Medical mission. Well over fifty people per week, on a regular basis, travel back and forth to the capital by boat and plane. These include professional persons such as our teachers, medical staff, and pharmacists; they include children who go in for orthodontia and other dental care, and who are on field trips to visit other schools and cultural sights; and persons who are buying supplies and finding potential outlets for the products I our community industries are very busy manufacturing.
Regarding the threat of mercenaries, these “Concerned Relatives” have now belied their true intentions with this new element of violent force. You can be sure that the
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Guyanese government is stepping up her defences against the threats of this kind. The Guyanese government as well as the U.S. State Department have all been alerted to this whole affair. One member of the State Department has asked us how he can be of help in protecting Jonestown from mercenaries. Everyone who hears of this is appalled by the threat.
We should hope, too, that the issue over Maria Katsaris is finally settled after this conference. She is quoted as saying, in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, that her father “cannot stand the fact that I am grown up and refuse to work with him. I am fed up. I am leading my own life and want no part of him. It is time for him to give up. I want you to leave me alone.” Surely, when she was alone with the U.S. Consulate and the Ambassador during her father’s visit to Guyana to see her, (and she was alone with them with her father, contrary to what he says), Maria could have asked them for a ticket back to the U.S.. In regards to her comments to the press and to her father, how could somebody make a person 25 years old say something she doesn’t want to say?
Sincerely,
/s/ Jean F. Brown
Jean F. Brown
Peoples Temple