Members of the Cuban LGBTQ+ community and dissidents imprisoned in a Cuban "UMAP"; forced‑labor camps disguised as military service, 1967
This 1967 photograph shows gay men and political dissidents interned in Cuba’s Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción (UMAP), or Military Units to Aid Production. These were forced‑labor camps operated from 1965–1968 in Camagüey. Up to 35,000 Cubans deemed “anti‑social” or “counter‑revolutionary” were sent here: homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, conscientious objectors, intellectuals, and others who did not fit the revolutionary mold. Maybe you could have simply been caught listening to the Beatles or having the "wrong" hair cut and ended up in here.
On paper, the UMAPs were intended to forge Che Guevara’s vision of the “New Man,” a selfless and disciplined socialist (basically, a sheep hardened into submission). In reality, they became a moral and political failure around the time of the failed Revolutionary Offensive and we can interpret more adequately it was about control, punishment, humiliation, forced labor, etc. Prisoners, including famous Cubans such as the beloved singer‑songwriter Pablo Milanés, endured 12–16 hour days cutting sugarcane under brutal conditions, ideological indoctrination, and humiliation, simply for being gay, religious, or dissenting.
I would argue the UMAPs exposed a central contradiction of the revolution: virtue cannot be forced, and dignity cannot be stripped away without lasting damage. You’d think a ‘Revolutionary’ society could do better, but it didn’t. The Revolution promised to be better, and UMAP proved it wasn’t.