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Examining the Migrant Horde- Pt 2‐The Power Behind the Horde by Bill Reader

Part 1 can be read here.

[Sarah Hoyt] Today, we dive headfirst into the logistics of the migrant horde. If you missed my prior article on examining the improbable reporting on the speed of this group, you can find it here. On today’s docket, a discussion of how this group is organized, who is supporting it including what specific organizations and individuals have been named so far, and other logistical errata. Still to be discussed in a future article, the surprisingly tricky question of how many people, and what kind of people, make up the migrant horde.

I’m going to focus most of this article on examining certain key players. Barolo Fuentes, a Honduran socialist who was one of the frontmen for this caravan, and his friends in the LIBRE party; Pueblo sin Fronteras, a project of the Chicago-Based 501c La Familia Latina Unida; and a brief look at Venezuela, recently highlighted by Vice President Pence and currently in the spotlight as a possible funding source for all this.

We’ll begin with the man purported to have started it all‐ Bartolo Fuentes. First, the official story. My first introduction to him was an article published by The Daily Beast. It’s a characteristically ideologically stilted article. They report caravan #1 as being touched off by a false report that Fuentes would pay all expenses of people traveling North. I quote: "The anchors interviewed a woman who was supposedly part of the caravan. The woman talked about safety in numbers, called Fuentes the organizer and mentioned foreign assistance. The anchors, without any supporting evidence, then said that Fuentes would pay for the migrants’ food and transportation." Fuentes himself took to the media to counter this false report. The theory runs that the safety in numbers alone, however, still offered an attractive alternative for long-standing holdouts, as Coyotes are very expensive.

Fuentes is described as a "Honduran Lawmaker" by Reuters and a "Social Activist" by NBC. I would call that an intentional mischaracterization. Let me add a couple of things from the Daily Beast article that explain that in more detail. First, his involvement in prior "caravans": "When Fuentes first became aware of small groups dispersed throughout Honduras that were organizing among themselves to make the trek north, he decided to help out, just as he had done with a previous migrant caravan last April‐and indeed throughout his life". So, this wasn’t just nondescript social activism, but someone who has deliberately and repeatedly assisted specifically with illegal immigration. Now, let me sweeten the deal with the other interesting fact‐ " ... Bartolo sought refuge in Mexico himself after receiving threats. Central America’s right-wing death squads were notorious and his earlier participation in protests against the U.S.-backed Contras, who used his country as a staging ground in their CIA-backed war on Nicaragua’s Sandinistas, made him a potential target.". I find that fascinating. Those "death squads" were often as not "revenge squads". That he had a target on his back makes it likely a more apt description for Mr. Fuentes would be "Honduran Socialist".
Posted by: Besoeker 2018-11-05

http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=526982