Jonestown: Guyana seeks tourism opportunities [Video]

GEORGETOWN, Guyana –

Guyana is revisiting a dark history nearly half a century after U.S. Rev. Jim Jones and more than 900 of his followers died in the rural interior of the South American country.

It was the largest suicide-murder in recent history, and a government-backed tour operator wants to open the former commune now shrouded by lush vegetation to visitors, a proposal that is reopening old wounds, with critics saying it would disrespect victims and dig up a sordid past.

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Jordan Vilchez, who grew up in California and was moved into the Peoples Temple commune at age 14, told The Associated Press in a phone interview from the U.S. that she has mixed feelings about the tour.

She was in Guyana’s capital the day Jones ordered hundreds of his followers to drink a poisoned grape-flavored drink …