April 23, 2013, Guyana Times, Jonestown survivor/veteran journalist dies, [Neville Annibourne]

April 23, 2013, Guyana Times, Jonestown survivor/veteran journalist dies, [Neville Annibourne]

Veteran journalist and survivor of the Jonestown massacre, Neville Annibourne, on Monday morning died after being bedridden for almost one week.

Neville Annibourne

Annibourne was 82 years old and died at his Lot 27 Happy Acre, East Coast Demerara, home around 04:00h in his sleep. The man’s reputed wife, Verna Cummings told Guyana Times that he was constantly getting fever but this time it was the worst. She noted that Neville took ill for the worst on Tuesday last and was sleeping most of the time since he was on bed rest.

The grieving woman added that Annibourne stopped talking on Friday, and on Saturday, he was breathing heavily. The woman said she last had a conversation with him on Thursday. Cummings, who has been living with Annibourne for the past eight years, said she knew him since he was 25 years old. The woman described her late reputed husband as a “jolly and free-spirited” person, adding that he loved to go out and interact with people, but most of all, he loved the newspapers.

She disclosed that no funeral plans have been made as yet since Annibourne's daughter will be returning to Guyana for his funeral. According to local media reports, in November 1978, Annibourne was working as a government information officer and had accompanied then United States Congressman Leo Ryan, who went to the Peoples Temple cult in the North-West District, to investigate reports about the leader, Jim Jones, terrorising the members.

While at a Port Kaituma airstrip, several Peoples Temple members opened fire on the transport plane, which was suppose to transport the crew back to Georgetown, killing Congressman Ryan, three journalists and a defecting temple member, while wounding nine others. Annibourne was among the surviving persons, who had fled into nearby fields during and after the attack.

Annibourne served under the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) as a returning officer and was the general secretary of the Progressive Youth Organisation, the party’s youth arm. He was also a second lieutenant of the Guyana People’s Militia in 1982 and rose to the rank of captain.

Annibourne’s stint as journalist began at the tender age of 17, when he became a correspondent for the Chronicle newspaper and became a full-time staff reporter in the early 1950s. He also wrote for Russian and Hungarian news agencies. Sometime around 1972, he became an information officer at the Guyana Information Service (GIS) and it was in this capacity that he went to Jonestown. After the massacre, Annibourne graduated from the University of Guyana with a diploma in public communications in 1979.