Take an evening stroll down the Malecon, Havana's crumbling
                 seafront promenade, and you will eventually come across a
                 large crowd.

                 Get a little closer, and you will see that it is made up of young
                 Cubans. All men.

                 The spot, just in front of the grand Hotel Nacional, has
                 become the main meeting point for Havana's homosexuals.

                 The fact that they are there at all reflects a marked change in
                 Cuban society.

                 In the 1970s, being openly gay on this communist island would
                 have made your life extremely difficult.

                 Homosexuality, like religion, was considered "anti-revolutionary".
                 Notoriously, some gays were forced to work in labour camps.
                 Others fled the country.

                 Aids threat

                 Now homosexuals are tolerated, if not fully accepted.

                 There are no gay bars or discos in Havana - one reason why so
                 many gay men congregate on the Malecon.

                 Most of those there when I visited seemed to accept that they
                 are no longer victimised by the government. But they are
                 becoming victims of another kind.

                 Two-thirds of all Cubans with Aids are homosexual men.

                 Fortunately the number is still very small. Cuba has one of the
                 very lowest HIV infection rates in the world.

                 That is thanks to a controversial quarantine policy in the early
                 1980s, an excellent public health system, and a largely
                 non-travelling, non-drug-injecting population.

                 But it is rising. And it is rising fastest among gay men.

                 Helping themselves

                 Cubans who work with Aids patients have expressed concern
                 that this still homophobic society is not doing enough to educate
                 the people who are affected most by Aids.

                 Alberto Rosabal works at the Los Cocos Sanitorium, where many
                 of those from Havana who have tested HIV-positive live. Eighty
                 percent of the residents are gay men.

                 "I think that our society is not prepared to speak freely about
                 gays, about gay activity, about the gay risk of having HIV," he
                 says.

                 "Maybe it is because of our historic origins from Spain and
                 Africa, but almost all the population have homophobia as
                 a rule in their minds."

                 It is noticeable that in the lobby of Cuba's national Aids prevention
                 office, there are several posters on display portraying attractive
                 heterosexual couples. None showing gay men.

                 It is Havana's homosexuals themselves who are taking charge of
                 informing their own community of the dangers of Aids.

                 Reluctance to use condoms

                 Most evenings a small group of them heads out to the city's parks.

                 In a project back by Cuba's public health ministry, they hand out
                 condoms and advice to the gay men that frequent the area. Many
                 of those they talk to are prostitutes - young men taking
                 advantage of one side of Cuba's expanding tourism industry.

                 Manuel, one of the volunteers, says that in a country so proud to
                 be almost Aids-free, there is a remarkably casual attitude
                 towards safe sex.

                 All Cuban men, he adds, are reluctant to use condoms - "a macho
                 thing," he believes. "My work is to make sure people know the
                 risks they are facing."

                 His is a small, but important, effort - trying to ensure that the
                 battle which Cuba thought it had won, is not belatedly lost.