[104-10164-10099.pdf — page 37]
# 14-00000"At last we had all the Cuban rev- olutionary fighters and leaders together, after 17 years. We decided to upscale the action after that. We wanted to beat the guy (Castro) or at least make his life impossible. I told them that we couldn't just keep bombing an embassy here and a police station there. We had to start taking more serious actions-hijacking." (According to a Cuban exile newspaper, one of the resolutions that came out of that meeting was a vow "to begin attacking Castro's planes in the air."”)"I accepted the leadership of CORU because I wanted to set everything up on an organized basis. We were tired of being frustrated and not accomplishing everything that we wanted to do." Bosch brought the other leaders up-to-date on the kind of help they could expect in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Chile. Then the group dispersed. In the 11 months since that meeting, Bosch boasts, CORU has been responsible for over 50 bombings in Miami, New York, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico and Argentina. (Bosch refused to admit any personal involvement in bombings within the United States; police sources say the leaders had agreed not to take credit for actions within the U.S. because the FBI was putting too much heat on them.)After the Bonao meeting the Dominican government called Bosch in and told him he was "too hot" and would have to leave the country."I told them how cowardly they were and how scared of Castro they had become, but to no avail. I went back to Costa Rica, and Oduber (the president), to make up for the damage they had done when they arrested me (for the alleged Kissinger assassination plot), gave me three passports. One from Peru and two others from Costa Rica. Then I went back to Nicaragua, where I began getting phone calls from Orlando Garcia (security adviser to Venezuelan President Perez and a top officer in the DISIP). Garcia told me that he had been jogging with the president-he exercises with the president every day-and that Perez had told him to invite me to Venezuela to make a deal. I didn't pay any attention, but after he called me three times and sent me a visa, I came."At the airport I was met by Garcia and Ricardo Morales (the man whose testimony had sent Bosch to jail, and who had by that time become a high official in the DISIP). They took me to a luxurious government apartment in the Anauco Hilton and we made a deal. I agreed that there would not be any actions in Venezuela, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. In exchange they would let me live in Venezuela under an assumed name and organize other terrorists' actions elsewhere. They wanted me to include Grenada and Guyana."I said emphatically, no, I agreed to include Costa Rica, but I didn't want to include Panama because it is a (leftist) dictatorship. And I didn't want to include Guyana. We had already attacked Guyana. The CORU already blew up the Guyana embassy in Trinidad."Finally they said, 'All right. We'll just include the three countries. You can do what you want in all the others.' They offered me use of weapons, but I refused, saying that we already had all that we could use. They offered me bodyguards from the DISIP (the secret police), but I didn't need those either. They gave me an identification card from the DISIP which I took-I think it was in the name of Sucre. I was always traveling around the countryside with a great many bodyguards and lots of weapons.Bosch's secret pact with Venezuela "was going perfectly well. In fact, I was supposed to meet with President Perez on October 10, but then the plane blew up on the 6th and all the trouble started"ons. If I got stopped, I would just show my secret-police card and I wouldn't have any problems."boeage 2Up till that point, Bosch told me, "the pact (with Venezuela) was going perfectly well. In fact, I was supposed to meet with President Perez on October 10, but then the plane blew up on the 6th and all the trouble started. I had a lot of conversations with Garcia. He lived in the Anauco Hilton also. I asked him what should I do and he said, "Nothing is going to happen, just stay quiet. Don't worry, everything is going to be nice.""Then one day he calls me up and says, 'The president wants you to stay here (at the police headquarters). No problem. You'll be safe.' But I have been under 'protective custody' for seven months now, and the president has said on television that I was a member of the CIA and trying to destabilize his government.'"Bosch claims that Orlando Garcia has told him to "sit tight, everything will be all right. We will let you go as soon as the publicity blows over." But Bosch is not sure he believes him, and is getting very impatient. He spoke to me with extreme bitterness about "the betrayal of the Cuban people" by the Venezuelans who had so recently befriended him. He is even willing to entertain charges that Venezuela set him up from the day he was invited to live there. Could his old archenemy Morales have cleverly gotten even in this way?"Some of my friends said that they called me back deliberately to betray me. I don't know. It is possible."In any case, Bosch has decided to resume the offensive. "When I was brought to the court the last time, reporters crowded around me, but I didn't say anything. They asked me if I had a DIS IP card. I denied it, but I can't keep quiet anymore.So Bosch had found in Venezuela a seemingly secure base for his terrorist activities. Then, within a two-week period last fall, two terrorist incidents put the Cuban exiles on the front pages and landed Bosch in jail. The first was the September 21 assassination in Washington, D.C., of Chilean exile leader Orlando Letelier, whose car blew up as he drove past the Chilean embassy in Sheridan Circle. Cuban exiles were immediately suspected of carrying out the crime as hit men for the Chilean junta.The second was the October 6 explosion in flight of a Cuban airline jet shortly after takeoff from Barbados. All 73 persons aboard were killed. The next day, two Cuban exiles, Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, were arrested in Trinidad. According to secret court documents obtained by *New Times*, they confessed to planting a bomb in the plane and implicated Orlando Bosch (see the wall by (President) Perez. We're going to accuse him of betraying us. A traitor to democracy, a traitor to the Cubans, and also a traitor to the American cause. I am going to declare war on the Venezuelan government in the name of the Cuban cause. I don't care that I am sitting in jail. Perez is a traitor. He was making a pact with Castro at the same time that he was making a pact with us."If they want to put me on trial, they will also have to accuse the minister of the Interior, the DISIP director and the president. These people conspired with me. They should be put in jail as well."Did you see the Viasa (Venezuelan Airline) office blown up in Puerto Rico yesterday? My Cubans blew it up, but somebody is going to take credit for it."