Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations
Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU) has been described by the FBI as "an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organization". It has taken part in operation Condor, organizing Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier's assassination in Washington, D.C. in 1976.
CORU was founded by Cuban anti-Castro exiles Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles, Guillermo Novo Sampoll and Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo.
According to declassified documents made public by the National Security Archive, CORU was created to unify five different Cuban exile groups at a meeting in Bonao, a small town in the Dominican Republic in June 1976. In a June 29, 1976, report on Orlando Bosch's group Accion Cubana, FBI sources stated that "these groups agreed to jointly participate in the planning, financing, and carrying out of terrorist operations and attacks against Cuba." (page 8) Orlando Bosch, according to the document, was committed to violent acts against other countries he believed supported Cuba, including Colombia, Mexico and Panama. At the meeting, according to the document, the groups discussed kidnapping and executing a diplomat. A month later CORU members attempted to kidnap the Cuban ambassador to Mexico; one of his aides was shot and killed [1].
A FBI document dated October 21, 1976, transmits information from a source who has spoken with a member of CORU named Secundino Carrera who admitted "that CORU was responsible for the bombing of the Cubana Airlines DC-8 on October 6, 1976." Carrera justifies the bombing as an act of war. The memo indicates that the bombing has caused some dissention in CORU over its tactics, but that the organization headed by Orlando Bosch is planning to sell bonds to finance future operations.
Members of CORU
- Orlando Bosch has been head of CORU.
- Luis Posada Carriles
- Secundino Carrera