[Pete F.]

How the caravan started
TAPACHULA, Mexico—When Bartolo Fuentes speaks about migrants, the usually soft-spoken former politician gets passionate, and an encyclopedic knowledge of immigration issues shines through. Bespectacled and 54 years old with salt and pepper hair, he has the look of a professor, but he draws on a lifetime working with migrants in Honduras, and on his own personal experience.

In 1980 an older brother migrated north, and by the end of the decade 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.

Until recently, Fuentes lived in relative anonymity despite being a former legislator and the host of a radio show on migration called “Without Borders.” But today, depending on who you ask, he is either a hero who’s put his own life on the line to help migrants, or a cynical villain. Many in the Honduran government—concerned with the country’s image amid a mass exodus—portray Fuentes as a “coyote,” or human trafficker, who organized the migrant caravan and took advantage of the people in it with “false promises” for political purposes.

ABOUT A MONTH AGO, 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.

At the time, all the groups combined numbered no more than 200 people, Fuentes says. As someone who had helped repatriate the bodies of many migrants who died in the journey al Norte, he was acutely aware of the dangers and wanted to help ensure the people’s safety.

“No one expected this human avalanche,” he told The Daily Beast in a phone call from the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa.

But then a report on the country’s most-watched cable news channel, HCH, painted a picture of the caravan that changed everything. 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 was later interviewed by the anchors and strongly refuted what was said, but by then the damage was done.
“After that news program I started to get hundreds of calls, then it took on a life of its own,” said Fuentes. “In Honduras, the government wants to minimize why people are leaving—they know they are going to leave and they want to say they are doing so because of lies and the opposition, not the conditions that they created. This is in line with what the United States is saying—that there are false promises being made. And this pro-government news program played into that messaging, trying to say that there is financing when really people just need to get out.”

Soon afterward, Hondurans from across the country headed west to join the caravan, which swelled by the thousands. Many were propelled to join by the HCH report, but the majority were people who had been considering migration for a long time and now saw an opportunity to head north with added safety in numbers and without having to pay a coyote, which can cost as much as $7,000.
Trump floated the idea the caravan was rife with criminals and “Middle Easterners,” only to have Guatemala’s president claim, in a burst of pure sycophancy meant to back up Trump’s claims, that several members of the so-called Islamic State had been intercepted. No evidence was presented to substantiate that statement. New York Times fact checkers rubbished it in short order. And, as it happens, for more than a century “Middle Easterners” have been a significant part of the Honduran population. They’re called Turcos because they immigrated so long ago they came with Ottoman passports.

In Honduras two-thirds of the population lives in poverty and the total number increased by roughly six percent in 2017; 80 percent of workers earn below the minimum wage of a few hundred dollars per month. On top of this, Honduras ranks among the most violent countries on the planet. Fewer than one in 10 crimes is ever solved.

And then there’s the drought. Honduras is one of the countries that has been most affected by climate change, particularly in the part of its territory that intersects with what’s known as the Central America Dry Corridor. In the past, farmers in this region could rely on two harvests annually, but now they are lucky to produce one. This year, a severe drought during the rainy season meant tens of thousands of families produced none.