Operation Mockingbird signs in caravan origins
Edith Cruz was sitting at home in central Honduras
scanning Facebook on her phone
when she saw the post about the caravan on a community news page.
…
Although the caravan’s origin story remains somewhat opaque, the answer from many migrants here is that they had wanted to leave for months or years, and then —
in a Facebook post, a television program, a WhatsApp group
— they saw an image of the growing group and decided.
…
There was word that hundreds more migrants from across Central America, drawn by the endless media coverage, were on their way.
…
“There’s clear evidence where it began.
Bartolo was the person who was in front of the media;
he was the face of this event,” Alden Rivera Montes, Honduras’ ambassador to Mexico, said in an interview.
…
Fuentes told The Post he was merely helping to connect small groups of would-be migrants who were already planning to travel north. In September,
there were posts on Honduran Facebook groups about the plans for the caravan.
…
He said he was in touch with four groups of would-be migrants
who were talking on WhatsApp and other social networks
— in Tegucigalpa, the capital, as well as La Ceiba, Colon and San Pedro Sula — about the possibility of traveling together.
…
The early days of the caravan received
a surge of media coverage
in Honduras, particularly from HCH, a popular television broadcaster in the country. By the time people started gathering at the bus terminal on Oct. 11 and 12,
there were live streams on various Facebook pages.
Before Americans had heard about it, the caravan had
gone viral
in Central America.
…
“Everyone wants to know who is guilty, who is behind this,” said Irineo Mujica, director of Tijuana-based Pueblos Sin Fronteras, which has advocated for this and previous caravans, helping to arrange the routes and other logistics. “But
no one has the power to organize this many people. No one can engineer an exodus.”
By mid-October,
the explosion of media coverage and viral social media posts across Central America prompted an explosion in the number of migrants.
Within days of the caravan’s departure from San Pedro Sula on Oct. 13,
almost no one could pin down the group’s official origin story.
They could cite only
the Facebook post or television program
that led to their own decision to migrate.
Washington Post
"How the migrant caravan became so big and why it’s continuing to grow"
By Kevin Sieff and Joshua Partlow
October 23 at 8:10 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/how-the-migrant-caravan-became-so-big-and-why-its-continuing-to-grow/2018/10/23/88abf1a6-d631-11e8-8384-bcc5492fef49_story.html?utm_term=.6e6b1b19f938