[Editor’s note: This cable represents a daily news bulletin from the International Communication Agency for November 21, 1978. Only the portions related to the Guyana tragedy are reproduced below.]
[Listing of agencies receiving informational copies on PDF]
O 221156Z NOV 78
FM USICA PARIS
[Listing of agencies receiving copies on PDF]
Daily media analysis
Outraged by the Guyana massacre, Le Monde Nov 21 editorialized his article the headlines: “The ‘Un-American’ Massacre of Jonestown.’ “… All the elements exist to make the North American continent a place for religious experimentations and unseen religious expansion… The frightening Jonestown slaughter is totally outside of this context. This is a literally ‘Un-American’ Massacre and an anti-American one. It would have been inconceivable and undoubtedly impossible in the homeland of the victims whether they were willing or not. It was necessary to uproot and to transport them to the heart of the jungle to turn them into slaves of a delirious faith for a ‘Messiah’ who could after all give free course to his instincts for domination and death to turn them into self-destructive robots.
“These horrors are without precedent and all the necessary measures will be taken to avoid their happening again. Their unique character should not make us forget that some imported and recent sects – in the United States and elsewhere – are tempted by excess and diehard abnegation of the individual turning them into the prey of unscrupulous and torturing Magi.”