An interview with veteran anti-Castro militant Orlando Bosch

By ANDY ROBINSON, correspondent in Miami

Bosch was released in 1987 and pardoned by President Bush, Sr. in 1990. Luis Posada, his partner in what Bosch calls "the world path to war," is now jailed in Texas, pending a request for deportation submitted by the Venezuelan government for his involvement in the attack against the said Cuban aircraft. Bosch was interviewed by La Vanguardia in his small bungalow on the outskirts of Miami, where he lives with his Chilean wife. His walls are covered with naïve oil paintings, for the most part Cuban countryside scenes Bosch paints as he recovers from a brain hemorrhage.

Frustrated. I would have liked to kill that man to set an example for future generations. The prospect that he will die in bed really upsets me.

For lack of resources. For instance, the Novo brothers went to Spain (he’s talking about Castro’s visit there in 1992) and they were ready. We did what we could, even got forged passports. However, halfway into the plan we had to abort because the money never turned up. We tried many times, but we have worked in misery.

Only at the very beginning. Then they betrayed us following the Khrushchev-Kennedy pact. Had the CIA been willing to, Castro would be dead today.

They did help Luis Posada, but then when he was in El Salvador, Mas Canosa did the kind of work he liked, a diplomatic work. I was at the other end, in favor of action and war.

I talked to Somoza in Nicaragua, to Figueres in Costa Rica, and to the head of Pinochet’s intelligence services. I didn’t ask them for money, just for permission to use the diplomatic bag, because it was very difficult to penetrate Cuba’s borders with special rifles. Somoza said he wouldn’t help a Head of State’s assassination attempt because his father had been the victim of one. Pinochet said he already had too many problems. So we went to Buenos Aires, where journalist Manuel Fuentes put me in touch with Triple A, at the time the most powerful anti-communist organization, and we attacked the Cuban ambassador. After that we did a thousand other things.

In Santiago de Chile in 1971, during Salvador Allende?s mandate. Fidel spent a month in Chile. Two members of our group went there posing as reporters from Venezuelan TV channel Venevisión. They carried a .45 caliber pistol inside a camera. The plan was supported by Manuel Contreras, head of the Chilean intelligence, whose agents told our men to throw themselves to the ground after shooting the gun, and they would pretend to arrest them. They were standing two meters away from Castro.

The one who had to pull the trigger chickened out and didn’t shoot.

What can be done in Cuba? You tell me. There’s all-out repression. Anyone who tries to do anything, and bang! It’s over. Putting up a sign is the only thing you can do.

[Miami-based paramilitary anti-Castro group] F-4 and Rodolfo Frómeta are a case for psychiatry. He’s a friend of mine, but his chances are zilch. That’s dead and buried.

Luis Posada did that. He paid a Central American, a man from El Salvador. They are so hungry that they would do anything for a hundred bucks. That man went to Cuba with the component parts inside a TV. He put three bombs, one of them in a hotel where an Italian was killed, and another in [restaurant] La Bodeguita del Medio, and he stayed around instead of getting the hell out of there!

Sure it did. There were doubts at first about the bomb having been planted by Castro’s people. You can’t imagine how much shit was going on then. It had a huge impact here. People thought Castro’s army had done it....

Of course. Look at it this way: there was a time before we overthrew Batista when we put 40 bombs. I put bombs, everybody put bombs, and we succeeded. It worked! And it was the same here. People were saying the bombs had been planted by the army and ho, ho, ho! This can work. Because a bomb is proof of rebelliousness, proof of bravery. It serves many purposes, it’s useful as propaganda. Anything, a bomb or an assassination attempt.

You have to find mercenaries, because a Cuban who tells you he will do it is a liar. There are brave Cubans around, but I don’t know who they are. It’s quite clear in that no organization is doing anything. Listen, if they put ten bombs, hey, even if it’s only three, it would be a success. They would say that the army did it, that the Commander did it. People here would take to the streets, and so would they in Cuba. It would be broadcast by [anti-Castro stations] Radio Mambí and Radio Martí; they would say things are topsy-turvy down there (in Cuba), ah! a thousand things. Yet today it’s very difficult to find someone willing to do anything. We sent a guy, and instead of going there he went to Santo Domingo to meet up with a whore. All that is in the doldrums nowadays.

It’s wrong. We had to do those things. Let’s suppose that now we take a boat with a machine-gun here in Miami. Everybody wants Castro dead, but if you do that they accuse you of being a terrorist and put you in jail. Since 9/11, "terrorist" has become a bad word, but the Americans are killing thousands of women and children in Iraq. You do nothing by paying compliments to Fidel. I’m a doctor. I trained to do good. I could be a millionaire, but I’m poor because I devote myself to war. Bringing down Fidel is the only way, and we have failed to do it.

It was a wartime target. There are many things I can?t say. But those were actions of war. And that was a war plane. It carried North Koreans, Guyanese, all of them communists. The athletes had won five gold medals in fencing. "Cuba has distinguished itself in boxing, but not in fencing," they said. It was Fidel’s glory. In Santo Domingo we had agreed (when the group Comando de Organizaciones Revolucionarios Organizadas was established in 1976) that everyone coming from Cuba to harvest rewards for Fidel had to face the same risks as those of us who fought the tyrant.

That’s right, in 1968. We had eleven frogmen who laid mines under the ship Santurce. We Cubans in Miami were very in a peeve about Spain.

Because Spain was going to Cuba with the [hotel chain] Meliá, putting up hotels, etc.

I would have done exactly the same, or twice as much. Twice as much as I did.

English Translation from Cubanews.

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