Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Showing posts with label poor African Americans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poor African Americans. Show all posts

Monday, November 12, 2018

Forty years ago, apocalypse in Guyana's jungle


by Natalie de Vallieres and Biodun Iginla, France24, Paris


    © AFP/File | Corpses from the "Jonestown Massacre" in Guyana in 1978

    PARIS  - 
    In one of the most dramatic mass murder-suicides of modern history, 914 adults and children from a US cult died in the jungle of the small South American country of Guyana on November 18, 1978.
    Here is an account, drawn from France24 reporting at the time, of the "Jonestown Massacre" at the People's Temple sect headed by US Reverend Jim Jones.
    - Dream of a jungle utopia -
    Five years earlier, Jones had moved his "church" from San Francisco to the former British colony of Guyana in the north of the Latin American continent.
    The self-styled reverend -- who passed himself off as the reincarnation of Lenin, Jesus Christ and Buddha -- had built a strong following since the 1950s, mostly attracting poor African Americans.
    In 1973, in a remote part of the Guyana jungle, he founded Jonestown, a socialist, self-sufficient settlement that he said would be free of violence, racism, sexism and ageism.
    Hundreds of his disciples followed and Jones wielded unquestioned authority over the community, a mix of hippy culture and vague socialism.
    Ex-cult members, however, made claims of drugs use, hunger and sexual enslavement, saying Jones forced his followers to work from dawn to dusk, six days a week.
    - 'Suicide' sessions, assassination -
    He also submitted his followers to weekly "white nights", bizarre sessions when they and their children were made to drink fake poison, they said.
    His explanation: suicide would be their only escape from an inevitable and looming assault by the US government.
    After complaints in the United States, Congressman Leo Ryan arrived at Jonestown on November 17, 1978 to investigate.
    A day later, as he prepared to board a plane home, Ryan was shot dead on the tarmac by Jones' men, who also killed three journalists and a cult member who wanted to leave.
    - Syringes of poison -
    Back at the settlement, Jones told his followers that Ryan was a CIA agent and US Marines were preparing to attack the community.
    A 45-minute recording found near his body would later reveal how he incited his followers to commit suicide.
    In a story in December, France24 recounted: "The recording starts with religious music and the sounds of followers gathering ... Jones says that the sect has been 'betrayed' and will not be able to recover from what happened at the airport."
    "'We are not committing suicide; it's a revolutionary act,' he says.
    "He calls on the adults to administer poison to their children with syringes, saying, 'My opinion is that you be kind to children and be kind to seniors and take the potion like they used to take in ancient Greece and step over quietly.'"
    Children cried and Jones appeared nervous.
    He is heard saying: "Lay down your life with dignity. Don't lay down with tears and agony ... Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die."
    "Many people protest. A mother cries out that she accepts her own death but demands pardon for her son... The massacre ends with a cacophony of screams and pain, wheezing, the cries of children in agony and of protest, mixed with applause from Jones' fanatics."
    Several hundred people fled into the jungle. Some were caught and shot or forced to drink the poison.
    Jones was found with a bullet to the head but it was impossible to know whether he was killed or committed suicide.
    - Heap of remains -
    AFP journalist Marc Hutten arrived in Jonestown four days later and described scenes of apocalypse.
    "From the helicopter ... we see a sudden blooming of bright colours, like a field of flowers. They are the cotton garments in which the hundreds of corpses are dressed," he wrote.
    "The flowers become corpses and their smell, at first insidious, becomes putrid. Only the professional gravediggers of the American army keep moving among the swollen bodies."
    "Planted in the midst of this heap of remains is a perch, with two parrots, who cackle as if nothing has happened.
    "Further on, in a huge wooden cage, lies the body of a gorilla, the mascot of the mad 'priest', its head pierced by a bullet."
    Other animals lay dead too, also poisoned, although two or three dogs still roamed the camp, Hutten reported.
    "A small wooden bridge leads to the house of the late spiritual leader. Inside, 10 bodies... thrown across beds or even on the floor among the heaps of books and files."
    "The Guyana soldier accompanying us says that the dead all seem to be black."

    Posted by at No comments:
    Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

    Saturday, April 21, 2018

    The white-haired Hollywood lawyer, Cosby's last hope


    by Kathy DiNuzzo and Biodun Iginla, France24, NORRISTOWN (UNITED STATES) 


      © GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File / by Jennie MATTHEW | Defense lawyer Tom Mesereau's hardball tactics, forensic cross-examination and attempts at character assassination against Bill Cosby accusers send shivers down the spine of supporters of sexual assault victims

      NORRISTOWN (UNITED STATES)  - 
      Tom Mesereau is a Hollywood lawyer to the stars who got Michael Jackson acquitted of child molesting. The question is, can he do the same for Bill Cosby at the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era?
      Instantly recognizable by his striking helmet of white hair, the 67-year-old is tall and stocky -- yet remarkably sedate, even ponderous in court.
      Quiet and cerebral, Mesereau shuns the theatrics of many a showman lawyer, spending much of Cosby's sexual assault retrial silent, sitting erect in his chair, until he steps purposefully behind the lecturn.
      There his hardball tactics, forensic cross-examination and attempts at character assassination against Cosby accusers send shivers down the spine of supporters of victims of sexual assault.
      One witness for the prosecution called him "sleazy" and his tactics "repugnant," yet even Cosby's detractors admit Mesereau is doing the best he can for an actor slayed in the court of public opinion.
      An acquittal for "America's Dad," publicly accused by 60 women of sexual misconduct, would cement Mesereau's reputation as the attorney celebrities call when their back is against the wall.
      Friends underscore his integrity, or his decades of free legal aid for poor African Americans and those facing the death penalty as evidence of his commitment to justice.
      "His cross-examination skills are unmatched by anybody," says Charles Salvagio, a criminal defense attorney who has worked on pro-bono cases with Mesereau in Alabama since 1998, and considers him a close friend.
      "He leads you down a path and you're not even realizing where he's leading you to and then all of a sudden he'll bang you with something."
      - 'Extraordinary' -
      Mesereau's opening statement was an electric, rhetoric-laden attack on Andrea Constand, the woman Cosby is accused of drugging and assaulting 14 years ago.
      He called her a liar blinded by greed, playing with the emotions of a lonely, grieving father to hoodwink him out of a $3.4 million settlement as a way out of financial problems.
      "A con artist, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. And we'll prove it," he hectored. "She's now a multi-millionaire because she pulled it off."
      It is a radically different defense than that pursued at Cosby's first trial by Philadelphia lawyer Brian McMonagle, who called one witness.
      Mesereau tore into Cosby accusers Janice Baker-Kinney and Janice Dickinson.
      If barred from admitting testimony about what he called Constand's "extensive" use of magic mushrooms and marijuana, it was not without a backhanded compliment from Judge Steven O'Neill.
      "I understand that you are an extraordinary advocate," O'Neill said.
      But Mesereau's tough approach has not always dealt a killer punch.
      "Are you rolling your eyes at me?" Baker-Kinney shot back, refusing to budge an inch. "You're kind of turning my words around," she said.
      Born in West Point, New York, the son of a World War II lieutenant colonel, Mesereau was educated at Harvard, the London School of Economics and the University of California's Hastings College of the Law.
      A one-time speechwriter for a US congressman, he worked as a state prosecutor in southern California before entering private practice.
      - 'Wait and see' -
      His record speaks for itself.
      Mesereau is best known for acquitting the late Jackson in 2005 on all 14 charges of child molestation after a four-month trial, despite the star's own admission that he liked sharing his bed with children.
      In May, he got a black client acquitted of murdering a white Iraq War veteran in Alabama, a racially-charged case whose outcome drew condemnation from the Ku Klux Klan.
      Mike Tyson is another one of his celebrity clients, and Mesereau managed to get sexual assault charges against the boxer dropped.
      "I don't know anybody with more integrity," Salvagio told us at France24, saying Mesereau has "never charged a dime" on cases for the poor in Alabama.
      Dressed impeccably each day in a navy suit, white shirt and tie, Mesereau has kept his distance from the press, shunning the microphone and giving his largely female defense team chances to shine.
      Yet in a case with no physical evidence, Mesereau's cross-examination of Constand may prove most crucial, and under his sustained barrage, she squirmed in her seat, conceding inconsistency after inconsistency.
      "Mr Mesereau is doing the best he can under the circumstances," said lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents many Cosby accusers and who Mesereau has repeatedly claimed wants to secure money on their behalf.
      "We'll have to wait and see what the jury decides."

      Posted by at No comments:
      Labels: , , , , , , , ,
      Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)