The Department of State (DOS) is defending its decision to pay tens of thousands of dollars to a small but controversial Cuban company that worked for the U.S. Embassy in Havana–despite claims from two former employees that the entity is tied to the regime’s economic apparatus–and retaliated against them after one of them, Cuban artist Álvaro Hernández, posted, “down with the dictatorship” on social media.
The company, MadWoman, which styles itself as a “Mipyme” (Cuban micro, small, and medium-sized enterprise), is a Havana-based marketing agency, which the DOS admits has been paid $31,530 since last year to provide marketing services for U.S. embassy events, according to documents reviewed by ADN.
