FACTNet, the cult watchdog group that has, essentially, replaced the Cult Awareness Network, has issued the following statement with regard to yesterday's 20th anniversary of the Jonestown debacle of November 18, 1978.

November 18, 1998 marks the 20-year anniversary of the mass tragedy at Jonestown, Guyana, in which 912 members of the People's Temple died after suicide orders were issued by leader Jim Jones, who they called "Dad." Those who refused to drink the cyanide-laced punch were forced to drink at gunpoint or shot. Mothers administered the poison to their babies using eye-droppers. Of the 912 dead, 276 were children.

Jones ordered the deaths after People's Temple members killed Congressman Leo Ryan, who had gone to Jonestown on a fact-finding mission. After only a day at the Jonestown compound, a member tried to stab Ryan. The injury was minor, but Ryan decided to leave and a couple dozen People's Temple members decided to leave with him. Other members followed the group to the airstrip and opened fire, killing Ryan, three journalists, and one of the departing members.

Within a few months of the mass deaths, other People's Temple members who had survived also committed suicide, with one mother slitting the throats of her three children.

A year later, ex-People's Temple members Jeanne and Al Mills and their daughter Linda, who had been speaking out about their cult experience, were shot to death in their Berkeley, CA home. They had become among the most vocal People's Temple critics and feared for their safety.

Each year, a memorial is held at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, CA where 260 People's Temple children are buried. Due to the lack of dental records, the children were never able to be identified and thus were buried together there.

In memory of the tragedies at and surrounding Jonestown, especially for the children who suffered, FACTNet presents a special section of informational web sites with the heartfelt hope that public awareness of the severe dangers of cults may help avert similar future devastation.

See: http://www.factnet.org/cults/jonestown/index.html