Lesotho LGBTQ+ rights organisation denies it received $8 million

The Lesotho LGBTQ+ rights group has said it has not received $8 million in funding from the US despite recent claims by Donald Trump.

In his presidential address to Congress on Tuesday (March 4th), Trump argued about the Matrix of People, Lesotho’s leading LGBTQ+ rights organization.

“$8 million touting LGBTQI+ in a Lesotho African nation,” he spoke of the organization, adding that “no one has ever heard of it” in the South African nation.

“We don’t have that kind of money.”

In response, Tampos Motopen, a spokesman for the Matrix of Peoples, argued that Trump’s claims were unfounded. They told AFP: “We literally don’t receive grants from the US.

“I don’t know about the $8 million allocation, I don’t know who has received the money or will receive it.

“We don’t have a contract that doesn’t even get to that kind of money or half of that money.”

As reported by Daily Mailthe US government Foreign Support Website Last year, it showed that around $120 million was spent on the domestic “Health and Population” program, including $43.5 million to tackle HIV/AIDS. The site does not list any financial support for Lesotho’s LGBTQ+ rights.

Lesotho’s Foreign Minister Lejo Mpotojoan also placed emphasis on the president’s comments, saying it was “shocking” to hear the president “see such a sovereign nation.”

“To my surprise, a country no one has ever heard of is a country where the US has a permanent mission,” Mpotjoane told AFP. “Lesotho is a member of the United Nations and many other international organizations. And the US has its embassy here. [there are] Many American organizations we have housed here in Masel. ”

Trump’s Lesotho claim, following White House press chief Caroline Leavitt, falsely states that the International Development Agency USAID has spent $47,000 on Trans Opera in Colombia, and is even more angry.

USAID has been under severe attack since Trump took office. In February, they “A bunch of radical madmen.” Elon Musk also took X to describe the agency as “evil” and “the nest of radical left Marxist vipers who hate America.”

Musk also tweeted an unfounded claim that USAID “funded Bioweapon’s research, including Covid-19, which killed millions of people.”

During a two-hour Congress speech on Tuesday, Trump confronted a series of anti-trans executive orders, yelling about “transgender mice,” and faced protests staged by Democrats.

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