He who pays the piper . . .

responded with conditions. No one gives their money for free.
Experience from the Constitution-making process should have taught us valuable lessons.
Depending on donors to fund our internal processes like elections and Constitution-making leaves us at the mercy of foreigners, some who have their agendas here.

We cannot have those that imposed sanctions on us coming here to observe our elections as if we ever observed their own.

Imagine the US inviting al-Qaeda to observe their elections or asking the Iranians for funding of their elections.

Yet that is what we seek to do.
There are some among us Zimbabweans whose definition of the international community only speaks of the US and the EU.

We have always had election observers during our elections. Sadc and the Non-Aligned Movement have observed our elections before.

It is this begging that leaves us at the mercy of regime change vultures.
Aid and funding of this nature are not out of the benevolence of the donors; aid has and will always be a political tool which is unleashed at the opportune time.
It is used by the donor to continuously control weak nations.

Even in life if you want someone to be forever indebted to you be the benevolent uncle or relative.
The sooner we realise that the donor community is not made up of philanthropists the better for us. The donor community uses aid to manipulate and impose their agenda on a weak nation.
The donor community feast on the weaker states. As aid comes the donor will want something in return and in most cases it is the sovereignty of a country.

The threat of the UK to withdraw aid to the country that forbids homosexuality exposed the desire for donors to impose their agenda on the recipient.

Malawi is a good example of why we should never sell our nations to the donor community. President Joyce Banda is today a darling of the donor community because she is dancing to their tune.

It is a worrisome thing for our elections to be funded by foreigners, more so by the agents of the West.

As a people we need to harness our own resources for processes like these ones. The funding of the elections by foreigners will skew the playing field in favour of MDC-T, which is a Trojan horse of the same.

We saw this in the constitution-making process where these benefactors supported one position over the other, where they would withhold money or withdraw the funding altogether if things did not go their way.

Using their money, the donors will make all sorts of noise about reforms and things like that as conditions for funding and this makes our nation vulnerable to the machinations of the enemies.

We have a proverb in our Shona language which says “moyo chena wei tsvimborume kubvisa mwana wemvana madzihwa? (loosely meaning if a single man does favours to a child of a single mother, there is something that he wants from the mother).”
What has Zimbabwe done to deserve favours?
What are the conditions of these favours?

Of whose interest does the West want to pour money and come and observe our elections?
The money always comes with strings attached and will we be able to break the shackles that come with it?

This has compromised our nationhood and Zimbabwe can never stand proudly on the international arena and speak sovereignty.

These are cases that leave us compromised and at the mercy of our detractors. Will the funders of the election accept a Zanu-PF win? These donors pour their money strategically and for them to agree to fund our referendum we need to accept their conditions and that way the country falls into their hands.

Zimbabwe will be there for their picking and the efforts of our heroes and war veterans goes down the drain. Our dignity and self-respect as a people is taken away. Great harm is done to a people when they become dependant on others.

Every time a donor puts his money on anything, know that they have an interest there.
They might not cash in today but it will come a day when it will be pay back time.
As alluded to before, the donors are not philanthropists, especially those that fund processes like elections.

Even those that fund food have a time they will cash in on all the donations.
So as we mobilise resources for these watershed events in the life of our country, let us not be ignorant of the devices of the so-called donors.
Their ridiculous conditions should just be ignored.

If they refuse with their money, which will be great, it will make us think outside the box and fund them on our own.
So this is a challenge to the powers that be, please do not sell our dignity by begging for donations.