Military Units to Aid Production


Military Units to Aid Production or UMAPs were agricultural labor camps operated by the Cuban government from November 1965 to July 1968 in the province of Camagüey. The UMAP camps served as a form of alternative civilian service for Cubans who could not serve in the military due to being, conscientious objectors, Christians and other religious people, homosexuals, or political enemies of Fidel Castro or his communist revolution. The language used in the title can be misleading, as pointed by historian Abel Sierra Madero, "The hybrid structure of work camps cum military units served to camouflage the true objectives of the recruitment effort and to distance the UMAPs from the legacy of forced labor." There is no official account of the internships of the UMAP's, but it has been estimated that the majority of the servicemen were conscientious objectors.
Around a small portion or about 8% to 9% of the inmates probably were homosexual men, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, Catholic priests and Protestant ministers, intellectuals, farmers who resisted collectivization, as well as anyone else considered "anti-social" or "counter-revolutionary". Former Intelligence Directorate agent Norberto Fuentes estimated that of approximately 35,000 internees, 507 ended up in psychiatric wards, 72 died from torture, and 180 committed suicide. A 1967-human rights report from the Organization of American States found that over 30,000 internees are "forced to work for free in state farms from 10 to 12 hours a day, from sunrise to sunset, seven days per week, poor alimentation with rice and spoiled food, unhealthy water, unclean plates, congested barracks, no electricity, latrines, no showers, inmates are given the same treatment as political prisoners." The report concludes that the UMAP camps’ two objectives are "facilitating free labor for the state" and "punishing young people who refuse to join communist organizations." The Cuban government maintained that the UMAPs are not labor camps, but part of military service.
In a 2010 interview with La Jornada, Fidel Castro admitted in response to a question about the UMAP camps that "Yes, there were moments of great injustice, great injustice!" Historically the Cuban government has presented UMAPs as a mistake, but according to Abel Sierra Madero, this institution has to be understood as part of a project of “social engineering” tailored for political and social control. Sophisticated methodologies were deployed that incorporated judicial, military, educational, medical and psychiatric apparatuses."

Origins

The affirmation of the masculine identity and the demonization of queer politics in Cuba has its basis in Spanish colonialism. In that, many of the central aspects argued about in relation to UMAP's were woven into the island through its repression at the hands of the Spanish and continued through US imperialism. With the arrival of conquistadors it brought with it “An absolutist discourse enveloped homosexuality in the concepts of ‘infamous sin,’ ‘sin against nature,’ corruption of the soul and alliance with the devil. They punished the practice without distinctions, among both lay people and clerics.". The Spanish used Christian teachings as well as their own race-based ideologies to reshape the indigenous and enslaved populations of the islands familial relations, marriage, sexuality and gender expression, in a combined effort to displace their native identities and replace them with a patriarchal and violent culture.
This is compounded with US imperialism and subsequent domination of Cuba in the early 20th century. First as US military forces occupied the island with the Second Occupation of Cuba then as they supported the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The US directly imposed even harsher sanctions against the gay community on the island, with the establishment of the Cuban Penal Code under their domination. Which stressed "mandated state penalties for habitual homosexual acts, public displays of same-sex affection and/or gender-variant dress and self-expression", while US elites exploited homosexual sex workers without regard for the laws that shackled the community. Both of these factors form the foundation of the hyper-masculinized identity prevalent in Cuban culture during the Cuban Revolution and convey how it has shaped the politics of gender and sexual orientation through its vilification. Allowing it to be understood that the rise of UMAP's weren't related to the revolution or communist ideals but rather complex historical factors brought about through Cuba's exploitation at the hands of the west.
The creation of the UMAP camps themselves were initially proposed by Fidel Castro and implemented by Raúl Castro after a state visit to the Soviet Union and Bulgaria, where he learned that the Soviets ran camps for "anti-socials". According to an April 14, 1966 article in Granma, the official state newspaper, the UMAP camps were proposed at a November 1965 meeting between Fidel Castro and military leaders. Both were concerned over how to handle "misplaced elements".

"Quedaba por ver el caso de una serie de elementos desubicados, vagos, que ni trabajaban, ni estudiaban. ¿Qué hacer con ellos? La cuestión era tema de preocupación para los dirigentes de la Revolución.
Un día del mes de noviembre del pasado año un grupo de oficiales se encontraban reunidos en el Estado Mayor General y discutían estas cuestiones. Hablaban con Fidel, el cual compartía esas mismas preocupaciones y le propusieron la creación de la UMAP."

"Still left to consider was the case of misplaced elements, deadbeats, those who neither studied nor worked. What can be done with these people? This question was the worrying concern for the leaders of the Revolution.
One day in November of last year, 1965, a group of military officials met to discuss these questions. They spoke with Fidel, who shared these concerns and proposed to him the creation of the UMAP."''

An alternative justification for the creation of UMAP's was not due to an inherent hatred of homosexuality due to its contrast with masculine values, which was a small aspect of the overall reasoning. Rather it was more so a tool to allow Cuba to mimic the revolutionary changes brought about in the Soviet Union, in which large aspects of the government wanted to craft its citizens into an "obedient". labour force. In that, many of the youth in Cuba in the 1960s and 70s were influenced by worldwide attitudes of fashion, music and culture and thereby espousing counter-revolutionary ideas that originated in the capitalist west. Homosexuality was one of those values that was championed by global youth "hippie" culture yet it has been painted as the sole reason for creation of the camps, which the evidence presents to be inherently wrong.

Third-party testimony of UMAP camps

Paul Kidd, a Canadian foreign news correspondent, provides the only known first-hand, third party account of the UMAP camps. Kidd traveled to Cuba on August 29, 1966 to write for Southam News Service. On September 8, the Cuban foreign ministry asked him to leave "by the first flight" because he took photographs of anti-aircraft guns visible from his hotel room window and "exhibited an incorrect attitude toward the revolution" in an article he had published earlier.
During this trip, Kidd departed Havana and wandered through the rural, former province of Camaguey where he encountered a UMAP labor camp near the hamlet of El Dos de Cespedes. The barbed-wire enclosed camp was run by 10 security guards and held 120 internees, consisting of Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholics, and "those loosely termed 'social misfits' by the government". The ages of the inmates ranged from 16 years old to over 60. None of the internees were given arms; all weapons at the camp were under the control of the ten guards running the camp. The internees worked an average of 60 hours a week for a monthly income of 7 pesos and their internment typically lasted for at least six months. Cubans who served in the standard SMO received the same monthly wage of 7 pesos a month.
As long as their agricultural quotas were met, most internees at the camp were allowed a break to visit family after six months of internment. Family members were allowed to visit internees at the camp on the second Sunday of each month and could bring personal items such as cigarettes to internees. Internees at the camp Kidd discovered were housed in two long, white concrete buildings with no windows just the hole in the wall which had bunk beds with sacks slung between wooden beams for mattresses. After agricultural work was complete, internees were instructed in communist ideology for two hours every night. Kidd estimated that about 200 such camps existed and in total housed about 30,000 people.

Effects

The direct effects of UMAP's are still felt in Cuba's homosexual and youth communities to the modern day, with the proliferation of Cuba as a direct result of them. Contemporary authors like Lillian Guerra believe the reason for the creation of the UMAP's to rest on the need for the communist government to insert itself directly in the personal lives of its citizens, and through that then use gender and sexuality to eliminate "idealogical diversionism". Allowing the state room to progress into a centralised and cohesive unit for the propagation of communism by taking direct control over the lives of the population.
Yet, the history of the UMAP's is still regarded as a tragedy in Cuba, with Fidel Castro even stating categorically about the UMAP's, “I can tell you for sure that there was prejudice against homosexuals". But it had not been enough to simply acknowledge the mistakes made by the nation in the past, rather since their dissolution in 1968 Cuba has made significant strides in supporting it's homosexual and youth communities. Through the use of sex education campaigns and the empowerment of gay communities through their open visibility, Cuba was able to turnover it's inherited "macho" conceptions. With the homosexual community taking a paramount role in the proliferation of art and culture during the 70s and 80s through the support of the government, with some even taking prominent roles as leaders in large aspects of communist governance, championed as evidence of revolutionary non-discrimination. The sex education campaign brought an understanding of sexuality to the forefront of schooling, building in an acceptance of sexualities and effectively cutting off colonialist mentalities by educating the population into a different cultural paradigm. A key example of how this was implemented was the AIDS crisis, in which the Cuban government actively worked to help those affected with "the Cuban public health system allocating $2 million for the National HIV/
AIDS Prevention and Control Program". Not only that but Cubans with AIDS were given full checks, even if they weren't able to work and a host of other resources like medications, treatments, housing and hospital coverage for free. Providing us with a direct understanding of changes made because of the UMAP's and their legacy, and how Cuba was able completely reform itself to the degree that it could publicly celebrate its diverse communities, providing us with an understanding of the considerable progression Cuba has made away from its colonial legacy.

Notable inmates