U.S. dismantles USAID memorial honoring Bangladeshi LGBTQ rights activist
Xulhaz Mannan was one of 99 USAID workers killed in the line of duty
In addition to shutting down the U.S. foreign aid agency USAID, the Trump administration has now dismantled that agency’s memorial wall honoring 99 of its workers who died in the line of duty.
The USAID honorees are a mix of famine relief workers, public health officers and advisors promoting American-style democracy in countries where the U.S. was at war, including most prominently Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Among them was Xulhaz Mannan of Bangladesh, a prominent LGBTQ rights activist who worked for the USAID Office of Democracy and Governance at the Bangladesh Mission in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was hacked to death alongside fellow gay rights activist Tanay Majumder by Islamic fundamentalist extremists on April 25, 2016.
Xulhaz Mannan was publisher of Bangladesh’s first magazine for the gay and lesbian community.
In 2021, six terrorists were sentenced to death in connection with the murders.
The Associated Press reported on the removal of the memorial wall:
Memorial wall to fallen USAID staffers is removed from the agency’s former building
Contractors hired by the Trump administration have removed a memorial wall to fallen staffers from the now-closed headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development, with no immediate word on where it will wind up
By Ellen Knickmeyer
WASHINGTON — Contractors hired by the Trump administration have removed a memorial wall to fallen staffers from the now-closed headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development, with no immediate word on where it will wind up.
Engraved tiles on the wall honor 99 USAID staffers killed in the line of duty around the world. President John F. Kennedy and Congress created the foreign assistance agency in the early 1960s.
President Donald Trump and ally Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency swiftly moved to dismantle USAID, closing the headquarters and terminating most staff and projects within weeks of Trump’s inauguration.
Crews already had hauled down the agency’s name and banner from buildings in Washington, eradicating traces of an agency whose mission Trump and Musk said was wasteful and contrary to the president’s agenda.
Families of the dead, lawmakers and staffers have worried about whether the memorial would be treated respectfully amid the breakup of USAID.
At the now-barricaded and screened-off former headquarters, the names of the dead were gone from the lobby. Two people were seen working on [April 30] at the spot where the memorial had been, while a third focused on a separate steel memorial plaque honoring support staff killed while aiding the agency’s mission.
The federal government posted notice [April 29] of a $41,142.16 contract to remove and relocate the memorial wall by June 6. Neither the State Department nor the contractor immediately responded to requests for comment on where it would go.
A security guard inside the agency’s former lobby said the memorial wall was being moved to the State Department, which is overseeing the remaining USAID programs.
Supporters had proposed moving it to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History or the National Cathedral, while a counterproposal suggested moving it to a rented office, according to a former USAID official familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
