It was founded by a group that included Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, both of whom worked with the CIA at various times, and was composed chiefly of Cuban exiles opposed to the Castro government.
"[1] According to declassified CIA documents, the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU) was set up at a meeting in the small town of Bonao in the Dominican Republic in June 1976.
The FBI later said that at the meeting, "these groups agreed to jointly participate in the planning, financing, and carrying out of terrorist operations and attacks against Cuba."
Bosch, according to the document, was committed to violent acts against other countries he believed supported Cuba, including Colombia, Mexico and Panama.
The groups included the terrorist organizations Alpha 66 and Omega 7[1][2] Orlando Bosch, who became leader of CORU, later stated that "Our war strategy was created there—everything.
This larger plot turned out to be the bombing of Cubana Flight 455, which killed 73 people, and which remained the group's largest attack.
[1][8] Born in Cuba, Bosch met Fidel Castro while at the University of Havana, and was a member of some groups that took part in the Cuban Revolution, before being forced to flee to Miami.
[9] After serving four years in prison, he went to Venezuela where he was arrested and jailed by Venezuelan authorities for blowing up Cuban and Panamanian buildings in Caracas.
In an interview in 2001, he was asked if he had ordered the assassination of Carlos Muñiz Varela, a Cuban exile who worked as a travel agent.
"[13] Perez Franco, who later became the president of Brigade 2506, another anti-Castro organization, was also a founding member of CORU, along with Lopez Estrada, who became its military chief.
[12] At the time that he was held in Caracas for the Cubana flight bombing, Bosch was also wanted by US authorities for his role in the Letelier killing.
[2][12][15] A Cuban exile group known as the "Guides" lobbied the President of Panama to release Carriles and his colleagues after they were arrested in that country in 2000.
[16] The agency severed his contract in 1967,[16] but he began working for the CIA again in the 1980s, this time in Nicaragua, where he supplied the Contra rebels with arms.
In 1982, Mas Canosa founded the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), which donated money to a number of politicians, and in return influenced their policy towards Cuba.
[12] This was granted despite the Justice Department stating that Bosch had been "resolute and unwavering in his advocacy of terrorist violence," and should not therefore be allowed to remain in the US.