Military Units to Aid Production or UMAPs (Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción) were agricultural forced labor concentration camps operated by the Cuban government from November 1965 to July 1968 in the Province of Camagüey.

Many of the inmates were gay men, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, Catholic priests, Protestant ministers, intellectuals, farmers who resisted collectivization, and anyone else who was considered "anti-social" or "counter-revolutionary." A 1967 human rights report from the Organization of American States found that over 30,000 internees were "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 were "facilitating free labor for the state" and "punishing young people who refuse to join communist organizations." Historically, the Cuban government has presented the camps as a mistake, but according to Abel Sierra Madero, the institution must 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."

History

Background

Since 1960, labor in Cuba was beginning to fall more under state supervision. In 1960, the Guanahacabibes camp was constructed by Che Guevara. In 1963, Cuba ordered all males from ages 18-45 to be drafted. This draft divided draftees into those doing physical labor, and those in the official armed forces. Eventually the Military Units to Aid Production would be developed out of this draft, as a place for "anti-socials" who were subject to the draft.

Creation

The creation of the UMAP camps themselves was initially proposed by Fidel Castro and implemented by his brother 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, UMAP camps were proposed at a November 1965 meeting between Fidel Castro and military leaders. Both were concerned over how to handle "misplaced elements." labor force.

Operations

Internment of citizens

The main recogidas ("roundups") of UMAP internees occurred in June and November 1965. Another large recogida occurred after an airplane engineer for Cubana Airlines attempted to hijack an airplane in March 1966, which resulted in the firing of many airline employees and their sentencing to UMAP camps even if they had no connection to the attempt.

One of the most common ways to take individuals to UMAP camps was for a false notice to appear for military service, which had become obligatory since the establishment of the draft on November 12, 1963 by Law No. 1129. Individuals would receive a telegram with a notice to appear at a given location for SMO ("Servicio Militar Obligatorio," Obligatory Military Service). Instead of being taken to an actual military camp to receive training for the army, they would be transported by train, truck, or bus to agricultural UMAP labor camps which were located in Camagüey, a former province on the eastern end of the island. Conditions on the up to eight-hour trip across the island were poor, with internees provided with little clean water, food, or facilities. The camps typically consisted of three barracks: two for internees and one for military personnel.

Internees at the UMAP camps received no military training and they were not given any arms. The labor that the internees performed consisted of a variety of agricultural tasks from tearing down the marabou plant to picking fruit, but they mostly engaged in the cutting of sugar cane.

Many of the military personnel who ran the camps were illiterate or semi-illiterate soldiers. The Cuban government assigned those undereducated soldiers to UMAP camps because they were trying to professionalize the Cuban military. The cabo was in charge of tasks such as showing their squad where to work, but he still wore the same uniform as the other internees and had to perform agricultural labor. The accountant was in charge of keeping track of the amount of work each internee completed. The suministro had to be careful in allocating the food among the internees, or they would run out of food before the end of the month. The internees were often divided by category (Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay men, Catholics, etc.) en route to and at the camps. There, homosexuals and effeminate men would often be selected from one camp to another that was especially for homosexuals.

There are many reports of physical abuse inside the camps, especially reports of physical abuse of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Among the many forms of abuse, former internees report that Jehovah’s Witnesses were beaten, they were threatened with execution, dirt was stuffed in their mouths, they were buried in the ground up to their necks, they were tied up naked outside with barbed wire and they were not given any food or water until they fainted. Emilio Bejel, the author of Gay Cuban Nation, wrote that some of the officials who ran the camps were executed because of how badly they mistreated the inmates.

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Some internees mutilated themselves in the hope that they would be transferred from the camps.

Third-party testimonies

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 had taken photographs of anti-aircraft guns visible from his hotel room window and "exhibited an incorrect attitude toward the revolution" in an article that he had published. 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."

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. Catholic Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Havana from 1981 to 2016

  • Carlos L. Alas, son of Carlos Alas del Casino. Cuban singer and songwriter
  • Pablo Milanes, Cuban writer currently living in Mexico and author of book about UMAP experiences
  • Héctor Santiago, Cuban playwright
  • Fresa y Chocolate – 1994 Cuban film which deals with the discrimination LGBT people faced after the Revolution, also brieftly mentions the UMAP camps.
  • "El Pecado Original" – song by Pablo Milanes, considered a homage to remember the mistakes made in post-Revolution Cuba towards LGBT people.
  • Before Night Falls – autobiography by Reinaldo Arenas, deals with theme of UMAP camps.

Documentaries and books

  • Improper Conduct (in Spanish: Conducta impropia) – 1984 documentary by Néstor Almendros and Orlando Jiménez-Leal<br /> A book published in Spanish as Conducta impropia has the transcriptions of all testimonies appearing in the film and others never used.
  • La UMAP: El Gulag Castrista – 2004 book by Enrique Ros
  • Un Ciervo Herido (A Wounded Deer) – book by Félix Luis Viera
  • UMAP: Una Muerte a Plazos – book by José Caballero

References

Bibliography

  • Joseph Tahbaz: Demystifying las UMAP: The Politics of Sugar, Gender, and Religion in 1960s Cuba. In: Delaware Review of Latin American Studies Vol 14 No 2, 31 December 2013
  • Abel Sierra Madero: “‘El Trabajo Os Hará Hombres’: Masculinización Nacional, Trabajo Forzado y Control Social En Cuba Durante Los Años Sesenta.” Cuban Studies, no. 44, 2016, pp.&nbsp;309–349.
  • Abel Sierra Madero: "Academias para producir machos en Cuba." Letras Libres, 21 January 2016.
  • Héctor Maseda. "Los trabajos forzados en Cuba." Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana (2001): 224-227.
  • Samuel Farber: Cuba in 1968 "Cuba in 1968."