Inviting tourists to gawp at the site of the Jonestown massacre is abhorrent

It is hard to put a finger on the precise moment when the concept of “dark tourism” came into existence. The phrase itself is generally attributed to a paper published in 1996 by Malcolm Foley and John Lennon (not that one), a pair of academics at Glasgow Caledonian University.

But the basic idea – of visiting a place that is predominantly associated with death or tragedy – has been around for considerably longer than 28 years. To take the original discussion point as an example, Foley and Lennon’s treatise focused on the
assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963; a global tremor which, almost overnight, transformed the murder site (Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas) from an unremarkable city square into a must-see urban hotspot – drawing in thousands of amateur sleuths determined to disprove (or prove) the “lone gunman” theory.

But then, interest in the macabre was nothing new 61 years ago. Go back to 1863, and the Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli was injecting plaster into various holes found in the layers of hardened ash covering the ruins of Pompeii, and producing pale replicas of the victims of Vesuvius’s fury whose long-decomposed bodies had created the spaces. Wander around the London of the present, meanwhile, and if you fancy a guided glimpse of the streets where Jack The Ripper sliced open his prey, several tour companies will happily oblige.

Nothing really changes. Humanity has always been fascinated by the most egregious cases of inhumanity – and will continue to stare at the flames for as long as the fire burns. That said, there is something just a little unsettling about the proposals for the latest location whose “appeal” would definitely come under the umbrella of “dark tourism”. Earlier this month, plans were announced for a “revival” of Jonestown, the uber-remote settlement in the north of Guyana which witnessed the massacre of more than 900 people.

If a brief history lesson is required at this point, then, well, that is understandable. The events in question took place almost half a century ago, in 1978 – and even then, were revealed to the world through bloodied refractions of shock and hysteria. In short, Jonestown was a cult – the so-called Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ – which was founded in Indiana by the preacher Jim Jones in 1954, and ultimately moved from California to a 3,800-acre jungle plot, close to Guyana’s border with Venezuela, in 1974.

It was here that the vast majority of Jones’s followers were murdered on November 18 1978 – 909 people dying either after ingesting a cyanide-laced drink, or being forcibly injected with the chemical (Jones seemingly perished after shooting himself in the head).

It is a thoroughly bleak story, of faith gone wrong, of optimism soured, of naive trust repaid with poison. And its dank grave has lain largely undisturbed for the last 46 years. Until now. With one eye on the apparently tireless appetite for dark tourism, Wanderlust Adventures – a tour operator based in the Guyanese capital Georgetown – is assessing the viability of opening the remains of Jonestown to visitors, and has government backing to do so.

“We think it’s about time,” company director Rose Sewcharran told the Associated Press last week. “This happens all over the world. We have multiple examples of dark, morbid tourism all around the world – including Auschwitz and the Holocaust Museum.”

Responses to the news have been mixed. Now 67, Jordan Vilchez, one of the cult’s few survivors (aged 21 in 1978, she was away in Georgetown on the day of the massacre), has indicated a quiet approval of the project, saying that Guyana has the right to profit from the site (while cautioning that “I just feel any situation where people were manipulated into their deaths should be treated with respect”).

In contrast, Neville Bissember, a law professor at the University of Guyana, has described the potential resurrection of Jonestown as “ghoulish and bizarre”, framing his thoughts in a paper which asks: “What part of Guyana’s nature and culture is represented in a place where death by mass suicide, and other atrocities and human rights violations, were perpetuated against a submissive group of American citizens – [who] had nothing to do with Guyana, or the Guyanese?”

It is a fair question. And not a comfortable one. Sewcharran’s mention of Auschwitz as an example of an existing dark tourism site has been echoed by Oneidge Walrond, the country’s current minister of tourism, industry and commerce – who has cited the showcasing of locations relevant to the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 as a case-study in how travel and tourism can help shine an important light onto the most terrible brutalities. This, too, is a valid point. But the comparison feels jarring.

Nobody would argue that Auschwitz-Birkenau – or any other concentration camp – is not a vitally important lesson from history; a warning against tyranny and terror that no-one should avert their eyes or ears from (and really, should seek to visit as part of their education). The actions of Hutu militia in bludgeoning their Tutsi countrymen, while on a lesser scale, were no less an evil – and the facts and causes of what happened should be absorbed and acknowledged.

Jonestown is different. There are lessons to be learnt about the dehumanising effect of cults, but they do not need to be learnt in the Guyanese rainforest. The commune was built, deliberately, in an incredibly out-of-the-way spot – about 150 miles to the west of Georgetown, and only really accessible via the “nearby” Port Kaituma airstrip (followed by a six-mile hike down a rough trail). It is even less accessible now for the passing of time, the jungle having retaken its land from the intruders briefly in its midst. Little remains of the “Peoples Temple” – beyond fragments of a mill, and parts of the pavilion.

In other words, immense sums will be needed to reconstruct a place with an irredeemable heritage – and to make it easier to reach. By default, the result of this heavy expenditure will have almost no historical authenticity or value. As for reasons to visit – it is not as if Jonestown is on the way to anywhere else, a convenient stop-off on a journey from A to B. You would really have to want to go there.

And what would you be doing if you did? You would, simply, be rubbernecking – staring at the soiled ground where so many men, women and children were destroyed by those they believed had their best interests at heart. Respect for the victims of such tragedies is essential, but this would not be respect.

Talk of Jonestown as a tourism site should be placed against the wider backdrop of recent developments in Guyana. It is a country almost incomparable in its geography and culture; a north-easterly slice of the South American landmass, but as much a part of the Caribbean as that formidable continent – gazing north towards the likes of Trinidad and Barbados, with which it shares a great deal in food, music, history and sport (cricket is as big an obsession in Guyana as elsewhere in the West Indies).

But where it has long been one of the region’s poorer nations, it has lately come into cash – the discovery of vast oil reserves in 2015 boosting GDP by 33 per cent in 2023 alone. Increasingly flush, Guyana has directed its attention towards developing its infrastructure – no tiny task in a country which, though smaller than the UK (it is roughly the size of Belarus) is 93 per cent forested, and dominated by its major rivers (the likes of the Essequibo and the Demerara).

Internal investment will mean the creation of roads, houses and jobs – but it also means an emphasis on attracting more tourists. And here, great strides are already being made. Guyana greeted an average of 169,000 visitors per year in the first two decades of this century – but welcomed 288,000 in 2022, as the Covid bounceback became a boom. When you know this, you appreciate why a regeneration of Jonestown has been mooted. If so many travellers are arriving at your door, perhaps you should give them the full tour.

But it would be, as Prof Bissember has written, “ghoulish and bizarre” to do so. And utterly out of context. Guyana is already rich – in a natural landscape of breathtaking beauty, where waterfalls pour down cliff faces, jaguars skulk half-hidden, and giant otters play in rushing currents. Any vaguely adventurous traveller is firmly advised (not least by this writer) to give the country time and attention. But it is to these wonders that they should turn, not the pain and suffering of the dying, 46 years ago.

Three Guyana wonders you definitely should see

Kaieteur Falls 

Nothing encapsulates Guyana’s Garden-of-Eden aesthetic quite like this miracle of a waterfall, where the River Potaro drops 741ft (226m) with power and grace, rainbows dancing on the spray. In an era when Venezuela – and Angel Falls – is too risky to visit, and Niagara Falls is overtouristed (and far shorter), Kaieteur is a jewel beyond measure.

Iwokrama Forest 

Pitched roughly at the heart of the country, this dense treescape is a 1,435-square-mile segment of the broader Guiana Shield – one of only four pristine tropical rainforests remaining on the planet. Bright-eyed jaguars prowl between the trunks here. Though elusive, they can be seen via a stay at Iwokrama River Lodge (iwokramariverlodge.com).

The Rupununi 

Tucked into the south of Guyana, near the border with Brazil, the Rupununi offers a striking contrast to the closed canopy of the rainforest. A wide-open savannah, it teems with wildlife, from the giant anteaters which lope across the grass, to the giant otters that inhabit the area’s titular river – visible from the cosy Karanambu Lodge (karanambu.gy).