Two Exile Groups Say They'll Attack Latin Airlines
By GLORIA MARINA and JOE CRANKSHAW
Two Cuban exile organizations announced Friday that they will begin conducting attacks on airlines run by Central and South American countries.
One group, calling itself El Condor, announced that it will attack Venezeulan International Airways (VIASA) planes if Dr. Orlando Bosch, Hernan Ricardo Lozano, Freddy Lugo, and Luis Posada Carriles are convicted of the bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane in which 73 persons died last month.
Meanwhile, the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU) and the Honduran Anti-Communist Alliance said they will begin attacks on three Honduran companies - Trans Mundo, TAN Airlines, and Mexicana de Aviacion - because they are planning tourist excursions to Havana.
The announcements were denounced in Miami by Roberto Carballo, president of the Brigade 2506 Association. He said his organization, which had been named in the CORU announcement, was not a member of CORU and did not agree with the statements.
In fact, Carballo said, CORU has never existed because member organizations failed to agree on a concept of operations.
The Bay of Pigs veterans association leader said that Brigade 2506 and the Movement Nationalist Cuba have not participated in terrorist acts which CORU has taken credit for.
"This sort of announcement (the declaration attacking VIASA for Venezuelan judicial proceedings) hurts the cause of the Cuban exile in the free world," said Carballo. "It aids Castro by making all exiles look like mad bombers."
Carballo said that Brigade 2506 favors attacking Castro directly, fighting Communism in political and military fashion; but not with the indiscriminant use of dynamite "which may not kill the right people."
The Condor threat was made in an open letter to Venezeulan President Carlos Andres Perez, which, was mailed in Miami to the United Press International office here.
The Condor letter declared that Bosch and his three associates are innocent of murder charges in the airline bombing, and that VIASA will become a military target if the men are convicted. Both Condor and CORU have claimed responsibility for the bombing of the airline.
"Bosch and the rest of the accused by your government are totally innocent of the acts of which they are charged," read the Condor letter. "Mr. Bosch has nothing to do with Condor, the organization which brought forth the attack."
Bosch is in jail in Caracas, awaiting trial on the charges.