A terrorist by any other name

By Keith Bolender

In the political chasm that separates the two sides of the Florida straits, no issue creates greater passion than the categorization of a small group of anti-revolutionaries who have historically expressed their opposition through violent methods.

For a small segment in the hard right Cuban-American community these aging militants are freedom fighters who have sought to bring liberty to their oppressed brethren suffering under the cruel communist dictatorship of Fidel Castro. They are hailed as true patriots.

To much of the rest of the world, and particularly in Havana, they are terrorists. Their actions have caused death and destruction to innocent victims and their families, having done so with impunity under an American government that has refused to impose true accountability.

No clearer example of that dichotomy came recently when Orlando Bosch died in Miami at the age of 84.

The Cuban-born Bosch has long been reputed one of the masterminds of the bombing of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 on October 6, 1976. Substantial documentary evidence, together with declassified FBI reports, implicated both Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles as responsible for the sabotage that killed all 73 on board – including members of the Cuban national fencing team. The sworn testimony of the pair convicted of planting the bombs, Venezuelan Freddy Lugo and Hernan Ricardo, declared it was Bosch and Posada who orchestrated the plot. The incident remains the second worst act of air terrorism in the Americas, after 9/11.

At the time Bosch headed a group of anti-Castro organizations known as the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), to which Posada was connected. Their involvement was described in a report by acting Associate Attorney General Joe Whitely, who detailed that “Information reflecting that the Cuban airline bombing was a CORU operation under the direction of Bosch.” A declassified CIA document dated October 12, 1976, quotes Posada as saying at a CORU meeting a month before the bombing, “We are going to hit a Cuban airliner… Orlando has the details.”

Bosch’s history of violence against Cuban civilian targets stretches back decades. Pediatrician by profession, he was an initial supporter of the Revolution but quickly turned violently against it. In 1968, he was arrested for firing a bazooka at a Havana-bound Polish vessel in Miami harbor. He was sentenced 10 years, but fled the United States while still on parole. Previous to that he was implicated in a series of bombings and ran afoul of the police on numerous occasions. In 1964, he was arrested for allegedly towing a homemade torpedo through downtown Miami during rush hour.

Bosch acknowledged his violent past in his 2010 autobiography, Los Años que he Vivido (The Years I have Lived), writing that he chose the path from a conviction to oust the Castro regime. “The most crucial phase of my life came when I realized that violence was the only method of struggle available to us, the Cubans.’’

The Cubana bombing resulted in Bosch’s incarceration in Venezuela for 11 years, until he was released on a technicality. Upon his illegal return to America in 1988, he was immediately held and declared by the FBI as the Western Hemisphere’s “most dangerous terrorist.” But instead of a deportation order, Bosch received a pardon from President George Bush senior, arranged through the insistence of son and future Florida governor Jeb Bush, who at the time was campaign manager for who would become Miami Congresswoman (R) Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is now chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Since 1992, when the Bush administration gave him his U.S. legal residency, Bosch lived a somewhat celebrated life in Miami. Often invited to civic ceremonies, he was given a day in his honor by the Miami city commission in 1982 while in a Venezuelan jail. In 2002, he was photographed in the front row at a speech made in Miami by President George W Bush. This past October Bosch was awarded a plaque at an event at the University of Miami to mark 50 years of armed struggle against Cuba.

Following his death, Ros-Lehtinen told the Associated Press that Bosch, “Was a freedom fighter for Cuba and passed away without seeing his beloved homeland free of the Castro dictatorship.” Years before she had called him a hero and a patriot.

For the victims, Bosch is something quite different.

Haymel Espinosa described him as, “The worst kind of terrorist. He destroyed the lives of so many innocent people on that plane. It is a terrible thing we live with, every day, what he has done. And the United States has done nothing against him.” Havana resident Haymel is actively involved in the Cubana Airlines victims group. Her father, Miguel, was co-pilot of the doomed flight.

Cuban officials decry American hypocrisy on its war on terror, starting foreign wars while allowing recognized terrorists to live unfettered on their own soil – despite proclamations from George W. Bush who in November 2001 said, “No political cause can justify the deliberate murder of civilians. There is no such thing as a good terrorist.” The Bush Doctrine also made no distinction between terrorists and the nations that harbor them – holding both accountable.

While Cubana remains the most infamous act of terrorism, it represents one of hundreds the government claims have cost the lives of 3,500 civilians. It is a history largely unknown outside of Cuba, and has run the gamut of biological and psychological terrorism, attacks on villages, teachers murdered and a bombing campaign against tourist facilities in the late 1990s.

But when it comes to Cuba, Washington based lawyer Jose Pertierra notes the United States has always held different standards of conduct. “For the past 50 years America has let loose on the Cuban people these terrorists. So it’s no surprise that nothing is done against them.”

The Cuban born Pertierra also suggests a number of American officials are breathing a sigh of relief. “Bosch is gone and all of his secrets have gone with him. The dirty war against Cuba has changed, it’s not being led by violent exiles, and these old guys are a real problem for the U.S. – they are an embarrassment and they want them to go away.”

While many first generation exiles in Miami still carry a strong hatred for the Castro regime, only a few continue to justify terrorism as legitimate. They are the ones who mourn the passing of Orlando Bosch. For Cuba and most of the rest of the world all he represents is the death of a terrorist who managed to escape from much of the justice he deserved.

Keith Bolender is author of Voices From the Other Side: An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba (Pluto Press 2010).