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September 30, 2001, San Francisco Chronicle, Chilling parallels to the Rev. Jim Jones / Hijacker's letter had similar message about suicide, by Don Lattin,

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September 30, 2001, San Francisco Chronicle, Chilling parallels to the Rev. Jim Jones / Hijacker's letter had similar message about suicide, by Don Lattin,

 

It's a terrifying story about a man of power, privilege and paranoia. Chased from his homeland, he declared himself a prophet of God and political revolutionary.

 

Condemning capitalism, he and his fanatical army of devotees fled to an isolated, impoverished country. Once there, they plotted an unimaginable act of mass murder and suicide -- all in the name of God.

Osama bin Laden and his self-styled band of "Islamic" militants?

 

No, the Rev. Jim Jones and his San Francisco Peoples Temple, a "Christian" church.

 

As more details emerge about the hijackers responsible for this month's World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, one way to understand the cult of bin Laden is to look back at the horrors of Jonestown.

 

Jones was an ordained minister with the Disciples of Christ, a mainline Protestant denomination. He came to Northern California from Indiana during the late 1960s. By the mid-1970s, he had emerged as a major political player in San Francisco politics, with close ties to then-Assemblyman Willie Brown and the late Mayor George Moscone.

 

Jones attracted many low-income African Americans and left-leaning Caucasians with his racially integrated church and fiery speeches in which he denounced the U.S. government for committing "terrorism" at home and abroad.

 

Amid a mounting government and media probe, he and his followers fled to the South American nation of Guyana in 1978, where more than 900 people died in a macabre ritual of murder and mass suicide. Many temple members willingly drank cyanide-laced "Flavor-Aid," some had it poured down their throats and others were shot.

 

Jones tape-recorded the horror of that "White Night" suicide ritual in his jungle compound, known as Jonestown.

 

Today, a look back at the transcript of his instructions shows a chilling resemblance to the handwritten "last night" document found in the luggage of Mohamed Atta, alleged ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Atta document reads:

 

"Everybody hates death, fears death. But only those believers who know the life after death and the reward after death would be the ones who would be seeking death. . . . You will be entering paradise."

Jones said:

 

"It's the will of (the) Sovereign Being that this is happening to us. . . . Don't be afraid to die. . . . There's nothing to death. It's just stepping over to another plane."

 

Both sets of followers were told they were not committing ordinary acts of suicide -- something that violates the tenets of both Christianity and Islam.

 

Atta's letter, similar to a document found in the wreckage of Flight 93, assures the hijackers that they are committing an act of martyrdom. They will soon "be entering paradise . . . entering the happiest life, everlasting life."

 

Jones also promised paradise. Amid the screaming cries of infants and mothers killing their own babies, he said, "Look, children, it's just something to put you to rest. . . . Death is a million times preferable to 10 more days of this life."

 

His final words on the Jonestown "White Night" tape are: "We didn't commit suicide.

 

"We committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."

 

During the past decade, there have been more Jonestowns.

 

Seventy-two members of the Branch Davidian Christian sect died when a hellish inferno engulfed their compound in Waco, Texas. That showdown with the federal government helped inspire ex-Marine Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Oklahoma City Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995, killing 168 people on the second anniversary of the Waco raid.

 

In Japan, the Aum Shinri Kyo cult unleashed a nerve-gas attack on Toyko subway riders, killing 12 and sickening thousands. In Canada and Europe, 75 members of the Order of the Solar Temple killed themselves in search of new life in a place called Sirius.

 

And in the spring of 1997, thirty-nine members of Heaven's Gate, a Southern California cult blending Bible prophesy, spiritualism and UFO lore, killed themselves in the belief that they would rendezvous with a spaceship trailing the Hale-Bopp comet.

 

Authorities on cult movements and religious fanaticism remind us that these acts are often carried out -- not by mindless zombies -- but by sincere ideological converts. They see themselves as engaged in a "cosmic war," acting out real-life battles of "performance violence."

 

Sadly, few of those cult experts think we've seen the final act of that performance of death.

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on Jul 17, 13