14ymedio, Havana, August 12, 2024 — “Rub out all mannerisms and antisocial behavior” was the first commandment of the Military Units to Aid Production (UMAP), founded in Cuba in the 60s as forced labor camps for “homosexuals, the religious and the social lumpen.” The phrase is fixed, like a mantra, in several documents of the time rescued this Monday on social networks that expose the methods of indoctrination of those schools of “rehabilitation” in the time of Fidel Castro.
The documents – six in total – “were delivered by a source that asked for their publication and only had two conditions: anonymity and open access,” journalist José Raúl Gallego, a resident of Mexico, who disseminated the documents, said on Facebook.
The first two documents, dated in the mid-1960s, are perhaps the most shocking. First of all, they “study” the presence of homosexuals in the country and propose for their “reform” the creation of a Model Center, where military doctrine will lead them to become “useful” for the Revolution. However, not all the “deviants” would go to the camps. The revolutionary class, children of families committed to the process and those who had “real possibilities” of integrating into society would be separated.
These, the “privileged,” would become part of a group A. Groups B and C were the “counter-revolutionaries” who wanted to stay on the Island and those who wanted to leave, respectively. As for the latter, they were to be subjected to “very rigid” methods until they eventually left the country and the unit was dissolved. Or, which is the same, until the Revolution had shaken out the last “antisocial” element.
’Rub out all mannerisms of antisocial behavior’ was the mantra among the ranks of the UMAP
For company B, the objective was, if possible, more macabre: “Among counter-revolutionary homosexuals who for various reasons do not want to leave the country and are part of company B, the principle of detecting who among them can change political opinions and therefore opinions about their duties to society and rehabilitation will be followed. They will be gradually sent to company A and some of them later to the Model Center,” the document dictates.
For Groups A and B, the objectives changed: “to erase the mannerisms,” “anti-social behavior” and “any manifestation of hostility to the Revolution.”
The second document describes similar plans for those who – in the UMAP or the Compulsory Military Service – have presented homosexual behavior. “Prevention” is the key word here. It proposes the formation of Pre-Military Schools in which the boys lead the lifestyle of a recruit. It is accompanied by a Marxist psychological analysis of the ways of treating young people to achieve the desired result.
The proposal begins with a statement that, although it simulates an academic approach, would horrify any modern defender of human rights: “The scientific ignorance of the causes and remedies for homosexuality makes it impossible for us to find a definitive solution to this problem,” the report explains, but the “motivation” is enough to carry out the plan.
The segregation methods proposed in the document are similar to those in the first one. Recruits are to be separated by political affiliation and – here is the novelty – by the degree of exhibition of their sexuality. “We find homosexuals who, by their way of walking, dressing, speaking, etc., manifest themselves as such, and homosexuals without external manifestations. Among the former there are those who carry out a more fuller homosexual activity (they paint, let their nails grow, etc.) and at the same time are more undisciplined; and those who present effeminate external manifestations, but who accept discipline.
With this in mind, the report sets out the right method to deal with recruits: divide and conquer. “We will achieve our objectives” through the “group pressure on the individual,” as well as through “inflexible orientation and correction” of “inadequate” behaviors.
The “emulation,” as in a reward and punishment system, is the other side of the coin that relies on benefits such as granting passes and the possibility of accumulating departure days.
The report exposes the appropriate method to deal with recruits: divide and conquer
“The practice of sports and the realization of an adequate physical culture program are effective means to combat feminine gestures and poses,” is another of the conclusions of the report.
The rest of the documents contain an interview with one of the homosexuals sent to the UMAP and two reports on religions in Cuba. The first, which recalls the interviews of the KGB or the stories of Reinaldo Arenas – who described these units, without ambiguity, as “concentration camps” – is the summary of a meeting between an officer and a recruit who seems willing to do anything to “reinsert” himself despite his “bisexual” behavior. “He would like to take care of himself from a psychological point of view,” says the interviewer who several lines below, within his observations, diagnoses: “He is a skillful simulator and immoral.”
For those who practiced some religion – the list of churches and creeds is long and detailed – there was no consideration either. Catholicism, for example, is defined as “the most dangerous religion that operates in our homeland, and together with ideological diversionism, performs all kinds of counterrevolutionary activity and fundamental espionage. We can say without a doubt that in the religious formation in general and the Catholic in particular, it is a pit from which we ranks of the counterrevolution and enemy intelligence are nourished, not only in our country, but in all the countries that fight for their liberation in Latin America and other continents,” says the document.
The honeymoon between the Revolution and the Vatican had ended abruptly by that time, despite the apparent sympathy expressed for Castro by Pope John XXIII – mentioned in one of the texts – and his apostolic nuncio in Cuba. Several facts, such as the circulars critical of the Government issued by the Episcopal Conference of the Island – especially by Bishop Enrique Pérez-Serantes, who saved Castro from being executed in Santiago de Cuba – and the presence of priests and numerous young Catholics in the invasion of Playa Girón, determined the Church-State rupture.
In the report, which advances through different Protestant doctrines to the lodges – Masonic, Odd Fellows and Knights of the Light – religious beliefs are nothing more than an excuse to conspire and brainwash. In order to keep them in the spotlight, a detailed inventory of parishes, publications, activities and “attitudes to the Revolution” is made.
The report advances through different Protestant doctrines to some Masonic lodges
The presence of Catholic laity in the UMAP is not unknown, and although these archives in particular do not evoke their indoctrination, the treatment they received thanks to many Cubans who offered their testimony decades later is known. Cardinal Jaime Ortega, who died in 2019 and was known for being a skilled mediator between the Catholic Church and the Government – he helped release many political prisoners – spent part of his youth in the UMAP, although he was very discreet in his account of the experience.
Other figures were sent to the Cuban concentration camps, such as the musician Pablo Milanés, who, despite the injustice, never completely detached himself from the Regime. Important personalities of the regime were narrowly spared from being sent to the camps. This was the case of Eusebio Leal, on the list for his Catholic faith and “saved” by the intercession of Haydée Santamaría, as the historian himself once said.
In the UMAP, where several of the darkest pages in the Regime’s history were written, isolation and secrecy were two conditions for the experiment to work. In fact, the documents insist that the only contact with the outside world be with the parents of the recruits who were willing to help in the “rehabilitation,” the members of the Central Committee and “authorized foreigners.”
Without ever admitting the horrors committed in those camps, Fidel Castro referred to them very late, in 2010, with a brief phrase about the decision to create them: “If anyone was responsible, it was I.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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