Orlando Bosch
Orlando Bosch | |
---|---|
Born | Orlando Bosch Ávila 18 August 1926 Potrerillo, Cuba |
Died | 27 April 2011 Miami, Florida, United States | (aged 84)
Nationality | Cuban |
Education | University of Havana |
Known for | Militant activities |
Orlando Bosch Ávila (18 August 1926 – 27 April 2011) was a Cuban exile militant, who headed the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), described by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation as a terrorist organization.[1][2] Born in Cuba, Bosch attended medical school at the University of Havana, where he befriended Fidel Castro. He worked as a doctor in Santa Clara Province in the 1950s, but moved to Miami in 1960 after he stopped supporting the Cuban Revolution.
Between 1961 and 1968 Bosch was arrested several times in the United States for attacks directed at the Cuban government, and briefly collaborated with the Central Intelligence Agency. He was jailed in Florida in 1968 for a bazooka attack on a Polish freighter, but violated parole and fled to Venezuela in 1974 at the invitation of fellow exile militant Luis Posada Carriles. Arrested for a bombing, he was released in exchange for surrendering his munitions, and moved to Chile. The US government considered him to have been involved in multiple bombings while there. In 1976 he was arrested for an assassination attempt in Costa Rica; the US declined an extradition offer, and he was sent to the Dominican Republic.
Bosch founded CORU in 1976 along with Posada and other
Upon his return to the U.S. in 1988, Bosch was arrested for parole violations. The Justice Department, which considered him a terrorist, sought to deport him. He was allowed to stay, and later granted residency, by US President George H. W. Bush after a widespread lobbying campaign that included Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the president's son Jeb Bush. In his later years Bosch raised money to support resistance to the Cuban government, and died in Miami aged 84. He remains a controversial figure, with former US Attorney General Dick Thornburgh describing him as an "unreformed terrorist".[5]
Personal life
Orlando Bosch Ávila was born on 18 August 1926 in the village of Potrerillo, 240 kilometres (150 mi) east of
After graduating, Bosch moved to
While in Chile in the early 1970s, Bosch met Adriana Delgado, whom he married in February 1975. Adriana, his second wife, was 20 years younger than him.[3] In 1976, the couple had a daughter. Bosch would return to the United States in 1988, despite being wanted for parole violations, saying "I have a loving wife who resides in the United States and five American children with whom I want to share the last years of my life."[9] He died in 2011 aged 84 in a hospital in the suburbs of Miami.[10]
Career
Bosch had left Cuba in July 1960 after helping to organize
Arrests in Florida and Venezuela
You have to fight violence with violence. At times you cannot avoid hurting innocent people.
—Orlando Bosch, 1979 statement while jailed in Venezuela.[13]
Bosch was soon fired from his job for keeping explosives on the hospital property,[6] and was arrested several times for his involvement in a series of plots. The first of these was in 1964, when he was caught towing a radio-operated torpedo through rush-hour traffic.[2] The next year, Bosch and five others were charged with smuggling bombs out of the US, after a raid by police on a house close to Orlando. In April 1966 a police roadblock found Bosch transporting bombs made with dynamite; he told them he was taking them to a "secret base where there was a boat we could use to bomb Castro." In December of the same year, he was charged with extortion.[2][9] According to a report by the US Department of Justice, Bosch was involved with 30 incidents of terrorism between 1960 and 1968.[8]
Bosch was not convicted for his activities until 1968, when he launched an attack on a Polish freighter.
Bosch served four years of his sentence before being released on
Bosch moved to the
CORU and Flight 455
Operation Condor |
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Bosch was deported to the Dominican Republic, where he founded the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), along with Posada, Gaspar Jiménez, and other Cuban exiles.[9][20][21] The group, led by Bosch,[1] first met in the Dominican Republic town of Bonao in June 1976, and laid plans for more than 50 bombings over the next year.[3][22] The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) described CORU as "an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organization."[1] CORU was responsible for a number of attacks in 1976. These included a machine gun attack on the Cuban embassy in Bogotá, the assassination of a Cuban official in Mérida, the kidnapping of two Cuban embassy employees in Buenos Aires, the bombing of a Cubana airlines office in Panama City, the bombing of the Guyanese embassy in Port of Spain, and the assassination of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier, a staunch critic of the Pinochet government, in Washington, D.C.[3][23] Subsequently, declassified documents showed that Letelier's assassination, part of a series that occurred during Operation Condor, was directly ordered by Pinochet.[4][24][25] Michael Townley, an agent of Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, the Chilean secret Police, was also involved in the killing.[8]
Bosch was invited to return to Venezuela by Orlando García, the head of security for Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez.[3] He returned on 23 September 1976, again traveling on a fraudulent passport.[9] Bosch was given a hotel suite for his use, a DISIP identity card using the alias "Carlos Sucre", and a Venezuelan passport. He was told that he could continue his activities, but that his targets needed to be outside Venezuela. Among those who had apartments in the same hotel were Garcia, and Morales, who had testified against Bosch in Florida, and who was now Garcia's deputy.[3] Soon after he arrived in Venezuela, a fundraiser was held in Caracas to support his activities.[3] According to a CIA memorandum, Bosch offered to refrain from planning attacks in the US during Andrés Pérez's forthcoming visit to the United Nations in November, if the Venezuelan government made "a substantial cash contribution to [Bosch's] organization" in return.[3] Bosch was also reported to have stated, "Now that our organization has come out of the Letelier job looking good, we are going to try something else."[1] After Letelier's assassination, a map of the route Letelier took to work was discovered in Bosch's office.[3]
Several days later, Posada was reported to have stated that "we are going to hit a Cuban airplane" and "Orlando has the details."[1] Flight 455 was a Cubana de Aviación flight departing from Trinidad to Cuba, via Barbados. On 6 October 1976, two time bombs variously described as dynamite or C-4 planted on the Douglas DC-8 aircraft exploded, killing all 73 people on board, including all 25 members of the 1975 Cuban national fencing team.[20][23][26][27] Investigators from Cuba, Venezuela and the United States traced the planting of the bombs to two Venezuelan passengers, Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo Lozano,[20][28] who had taken the first leg of the flight from Trinidad to Barbados.[9] Both men were employed by Posada at a private detective agency that he ran in Caracas.[20] Ricardo had called both Posada's office, and Bosch, soon after the explosions on the plane. CORU released a statement soon after the bombing claiming responsibility for it, and describing the explosion as having killed "57 Cuban communists" (57 of the passengers had been Cuban).[3] Several CIA memoranda from the period implicated Bosch and Posada in the attack.[29] According to an FBI informant, Bosch received a phone call on 6 October, in which he was told "A bus with 73 dogs went off a cliff and all got killed."[2][8]
A week later, Posada and Bosch were arrested on charges of masterminding the attack, and were jailed in Venezuela;
The Cubana Flight case was initially placed before a civilian judge, who ruled that the court had no jurisdiction.
Later career
Reich asked for permission to grant Bosch a
Despite this campaign, Bosch's application for asylum was rejected by the Justice Department in January 1989. In making his decision, Joe Whitley, at the time the Associate US Attorney General, stated that Bosch had been "resolute and unwavering in his advocacy of terrorist violence", and that he had "demonstrated a willingness to cause indiscriminate injury and death."[2][5] Agents of the local FBI, who investigated Bosch, stated that Bosch was considered "Miami's number one terrorist" by the FBI and other law enforcement groups.[5] The Justice Department sought to deport him; 31 countries were asked to allow Bosch entry, but they all refused. Cuba expressed a willingness to take him, but his lawyers declined.[2] After lobbying by Jeb Bush, then a campaign manager for Ros-Lehtinen, however, US President George H. W. Bush overruled the recommendation of the Justice Department, and ordered Bosch's release.[3][5][33] He was allowed to return to his home in Miami, where he was required to have his phone tapped, his whereabouts monitored, to keep a visitors' log, and to not associate with militants. Though he agreed to these conditions, he did not keep a log, and stated his intention to associate with whomever he please.[33] Two years later, he was granted US residency by the Bush administration.[33]
After his release Bosch began working for Alberto Hernández, who succeeded Mas Canosa as chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation, earning $1,500 a month.[34] In 1997 he was linked to the 1997 Cuba hotel bombings, in which one tourist was killed; he denied involvement, but stated that if he had, he would "still be denying it, since that's illegal in this country".[8][34] He resumed painting, and used proceeds from the sales of his works to fund resistance to the Cuban government.[8][34] He also formed an organization, named "Protagonist Party of the People", to raise money to buy weapons for the anti-Castro movement, violating the terms of his release in doing so. He claimed to have raised $150,000 by 1997.[33]
Legacy
In his later years, Bosch remained a controversial figure.
See also
References
Footnotes
- ^ a b c d e f g Kornbluh, Peter (9 June 2005). "The Posada File: Part II". National Security Archive. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shapiro, T. Rees (30 April 2011). "Orlando Bosch, who battled Castro with bazookas and sabotage, dies at 84". The Washington Post. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Bardach, Ann Louise (November 2006). "Twilight of the Assassins". The Atlantic. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
- ^ a b DeYoung, Karen; Montgomery, David; Ryan, Missy; Tharoor, Ishaan; Yang, Jia Lynn (20 September 2016). "This was not an accident. This was a bomb". The Washington Post. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f Bardach 2002, pp. 201–204.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Martin, Douglas (27 April 2011). "Orlando Bosch, Cuban Exile, Dies at 84". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
- ^ Bosch, Orlando. "Request for Asylum into the United States by Orlando Bosch Avila". Cuban Information Archives. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Orlando Bosch: CIA-backed Cuban exile implicated in numerous anti-Castro terrorist operations". The Independent. 30 June 2011. Archived from the original on 24 May 2022. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Dewar, Heather (29 June 1989). "Passion for Free Cuba Drove Bosch to Extreme". The Miami Herald. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
- ^ a b "Orlando Bosch, militant Cuban exile, dies in Miami aged 84". The Guardian. 28 April 2011. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-89680-214-8.
- ^ "CIA memorandum CIR-316/04881-76, released 20 May 2005" (PDF). National Security Archive. 26 November 1976. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ Bardach 2002, pp. 200–202.
- ^ a b c d e Glass, Ian (13 December 1968). "Bosch Gets Ten Years In Exile Bomb Terror". The Miami News. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ "9 Cuban Exiles Seized, Accused of Terrorism: Doctor Held for Threatening to Destroy Ships and Planes of Britain, Spain, Mexico". The Los Angeles Times. 12 October 1968. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
- ^ The Miami Herald. 27 September 1980. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ Inclan, Hilda (18 June 1974). "Bosch Declares War On Castro". The Miami News. Archived from the original on 23 November 2011. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
- ^ Bardach 2002, pp. 184–186.
- ^ Bardach 2002, p. 185.
- ^ a b c d Lettieri, Mike (1 June 2007). "Posada Carriles, Bush's Child of Scorn". Washington Report on the Hemisphere. 27 (7/8).
- ISBN 978-0-520-21449-1.
- ^ Bardach 2002, pp. 188–191.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4696-1763-3. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
- ^ Dinges, John (14 October 2015). "A Bombshell on Pinochet's Guilt, Delivered Too Late". Newsweek. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
- ^ Franklin, Jonathan (8 October 2015). "Pinochet directly ordered killing on US soil of Chilean diplomat, papers reveal". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
- .
- ^ Bardach 2002, pp. 185–190.
- ^ a b Bardach, Ann Louise (12 July 1998). "A Bomber's Tale: Taking Aim At Castro". New York Times. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
- ^ Bardach 2002, pp. 187–192.
- ^ Bardach 2002, pp. 198–202.
- ^ Bardach 2002, pp. 200–203.
- ^ Bardach 2002, pp. 201–203.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Tapper, Jake (12 January 2002). "The ghost of terror past". Salon. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f Bardach 2002, pp. 202–205.
- ^ Huffington Post.
- ISBN 978-1-56584-764-4.
Sources
- Bardach, Ann Louise (2002). Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana. Random House. ISBN 978-0-375-50489-1.
Further reading
- Democracy Now! (10 Oct. 2006). "Why the U.S. Refuses to Prosecute Orlando Bosch for Cubana Airlines Flight 455." (video report).
- Kelemen, Michele (7 May 2005). "Cuba Seeks U.S. Arrest of Castro Foe." NPR.
- Staff writer (20 Jul. 1990). "The Bosch Case Does Violence to Justice." (opinion). The New York Times.
- Staff writer (31 Jan. 2002). "Orlando Bosch's Terrorist Curriculum Vitae." Granma.
- Robinson, Andy (16 Aug. 2006). "An Interview with Veteran Anti-Castro Militant Orlando Bosch." La Vanguardia.
- Whitney, W.T. (Jr.) (29 Apr. 2006). "Who is Orlando Bosch?" People's Weekly World.