Thursday, April 28, 2011

Orlando Bosch, R.I.P.

“He was a freedom fighter for Cuba and passed away without seeing his beloved homeland free of the Castro dictatorship.”

– House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (AP)

“Orlando has been a patriot who dedicated his life and sacrificed his profession to try to return liberty to the Cuban people”

Francisco Hernandez, President, Cuban American National Foundation (El Nuevo Herald)

“A few days following the fund-raising dinner, Posada was overheard to say that, ‘We’re going to hit a Cuban airplane,’ and that ‘Orlando has the details.’”

“Following the 6 October Cubana airline crash off the coast of Barbados, Bosch, Garcia, and Posada agreed that it would be best for Bosch to leave Venezuela.”

– From an October 14, 1976 CIA cable on Bosch’s activities in Venezuela

“According to Morales Navarrete, arrested suspect Hernan Ricardo Lozano telephoned Bosch from Trinidad stating ‘a bus with 73 dogs went off a cliff and all got killed.’”

– From a November 5, 1976 FBI memo to Secretary of State Kissinger “in connection with the loss of Cubana Airlines Flight Number 455 in the Caribbean Sea on October 6, 1976,” relaying information from FBI confidential sources. Morales Navarrete was a Venezuelan intelligence official.

“We must look on terrorism as a universal evil, even if it is directed toward those with who we have no political sympathy.”

– Bush Administration Justice Department official Joe D. Whitley, defending the indefinite detention of Bosch in 1989 (NY Times)

This 1990 article from the New York Times presents Bosch’s history and the story of President George H.W. Bush’s action that allowed Bosch to live freely in the United States.

Here are stories and obits from AP, the Herald, Miami New Times.

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