Fahbs wrote:

That, I'm not sure about. I'd understood the whole time (since they are unveiled as "bad") that the plan had to do with causing a literal uprising in the refugee camps, which I recall thinking was a bad idea even before I saw it executed. It's like trying to overthrow Hitler from within Auschwitz.

They just wanted to nab the baby to use as propaganda. That was the whole point of breaking in to the camp.

I just liked how the Fishermen kept magically knowing where they were. The camp was the only realistic guess, though it seemed like way too much of a gamble to sacrifice your entire force on the possibility they went to a prison camp near the ship's route with a baby rather than just hide out somewhere in the country.

Finding Michael Kane's hidden pot farm? Just happening to run straight into them in the middle of the ghetto? I guess that's the other similarity with Pan's Labyrinth: magic.