One of the darkest moments in the whole history of the Castro regime was the creation of the UMAP (Military Units for Production Help). This was an attempt to use as cheap labor all the males not incorporated to the Revolution, the excuse was that they were fulfilling their military service obligation.
The other purpose was to have control over these individuals, included in this group were Catholics, evangelicals, JW's, homosexuals, anyone with ties to the previous government and so on. What they did was to create a series of concentration camps in one of the provinces and intern all of these individuals there.
Since this was done under the guise of military service, there was no due process or any semblance of legality; people were just gathered and confined in these places without any recourse. Not only single men were affected but many family heads were also taken and the wives were left to fend for themselves.
The treatment was brutal, this concentrations camps were designed following the model of the Soviet camps, beatings, abuse, rape, hunger and even some killings were part of the treatment; anything to break the will of the recruit and set an example for the others.
The brothers were at the forefront of these harsh conditions and they experienced intolerable conditions during their time there. Some of the officers and guards were very sadistic when dealing with the friends.
This experiment was so well planned that on swift move all the personnel working at Bethel, all the circuit overseers with the exception of two were arrested and taken to this infernos. They remained there for the duration of the experiment.
This abuse was finally closed after about two years, the reasons for the closure were that it was totally ineffective, non productive and the most serious one was international public opinion. It seems that at a time when Castro was trying to become legitimate, a group of French intellectuals visiting the country got wind of what was going on and made statements that were very damaging to the Cuban image.
This was really a very sad affair, had a profound impact in the witnesses work, later on I will go into further details regarding this.
Like a said in a previous post if you want to learn more about this run a search and you will find a ton of information in English and Spanish.
Thanks for reading