Whose interest do DONORS serve ?

SINCE time immemorial, aid has been trickling into Africa from all corners of the world, but mostly from the United States of America, Britain, Germany and some Scandinavian countries.

This aid has been in cash and kind form and the respective governments of the said nations have at times budgeted and offered this aid to identified countries in the third world with or without any specific pleas for it.

In other cases, beneficiaries of these handouts have making loud pleas for the aid and supported their pleas with huge projects and projections of what they intend to do.

The cause of extending kindness and or cash to the beneficiaries has since the end of World War 2 in 1945 always ranged from unforeseen and seen problems like drought, floods, post war infrastructural developments, disease averting and eradication, development and improving networks.

All the aid directed to the above serious areas of need have seen indiscriminate distribution of cash and kind aid â€" and has never caused any problems before.

21st century reasons for offering cash and kind aid range from some English language words and phrases that seem to have assumed new meanings and these words are: human rights, press freedom, democracy and capacity building.

Any student of English language, law, politics, policy studies and or political science knows well the true meanings of these words and phrases and the conceptual meanings thereof.

However the one thing that has aroused suspicion about the meanings of these words, phrases and or concepts is the timing regarding when these projects became so important in Africa and after what had happened.

There is no doubt that in Zimbabwe these concepts that excite donor organizations started being important soon after the land re-distribution programme that sought to address land ownership patterns that were unfairly in favour of the white minority remnants of the Ian Smith regime.

The manner in which they are implemented also scares innocent on-lookers about the motive of the project implementer and the donor.

As it is an undeniable fact that all donors have problems in their countries of origin, what then stuns any normal person is why are they offering the same or more aid in their countries than pour all euros, dollars, pounds, marks etc in areas like Sikhobokhobo in Nkayi district where they will never ever visit.

Just imagine the millions of United States Dollars that the Westminster Foundation, Osisa, Hivos, Cida, Konrad Adenuar Foundation, PACT, Office of Transitional Initiatives, Usaid and many other funding "partners" have been pouring into Africa to support free and fair elections, press freedom, human rights, capacity building and democracy.

If we are to do a factual mathematical calculation, would the millions spent on free and fair elections, press freedom, human rights, capacity building and democracy be less than the collective millions spent on disease averting and eradication, drought, floods, post war infrastructural developments, education etc?

This then necessitates the asking of the question: Whose interests do these donors serve â€" the interests of their governments or the intended beneficiaries, if it is the latter then for what â€" philanthropy or they are building highways to heaven?

Alternatively, one can view the conduct of the donor community as a new strategy of re-colonizing Africa by creating small satellite spheres of influence whose mandate is to conduct need assessment surveys in local communities, develop projects purportedly to address the said needs and get funding from those that will subvert, adulterate and pervert the ideal thought thus acting up as saviors for the people who are in their terms are referred to as the "grassroots."

This is because all these funders claim that they are responding to some need wherever they are just as the missionaries claimed to be preaching the gospel of God when in actual fact they were, some of them that is, agents or scouts of colonial powers that missed getting colonies before the Berlin West African Conference of 1884-5 which set straight the formula for colonizing spheres of influence without necessarily creating wars amongst imperial powers as was about to happen in the then Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo) basin soon after the signing of the Brazza-Makoko Treaty of 1882.

The methodology of now of re-colonizing Africa, especially countries that have vast resources like Zimbabwe is simply by way of pretending to teach third world countries some liberal ideas that are prevalent in the first world, some of them as evil as same sex rights.

Gullible Moise Tshombes of our generation have fallen prey to this wayward trick and thus have come out with all sorts of Non Governmental Organizations â€" all in pursuit of that which these donor outfits state as their "funding guidelines."

We cannot say that the donor community is anyhow treating the improvement of the education sector in Zimbabwe seriously when they collectively have failed, neglected and or out rightly ignored improving many schools in Zimbabwe â€" what with students still learning under trees?

A simple mathematical set costs US$1.50 and a school like Sobukhazi High School in Bulawayo has about 2000 students. What this means is that no donor has ever thought of donating the 2000 mathematical sets or US$ 3000 but they are able and willing to pump more than half a million in some regime change schemes posing as human rights awareness campaigns and or capacity building projects.

All children at Sobukhazi High School therefore cannot go to the National University of Science and Technology because their chances of passing mathematics are too slim â€" given that none of them will answer any question about angles, measurements and Cartesian plane.

Even their hopes of passing geophraphy are next to hallucinations because no person can do paper one on map works without any ruler, protractor and compos.

All this is because donor organizations have other interests like "capacity building" â€" whatever it means - and human rights as if sponsoring schools are not a deed of capacity building and education is not a human right.

In Matopo South constituency, Homestead Primary School needs US$300 to purchase exercise books for the whole school for a class of 30 students for the whole term and for all subjects but no donor or philanthropist has ever thought of funding that in their capacity building schemes though they can fund organizations like Bulawayo Agenda with more than a quarter of a million to arrange public meetings where government officials, traditional and religious leaders are subjected to unjustified scorn and ridicule.

We cannot say the donor community is interested in human rights because it was mum when the Gukurahundi atrocities happened in the early 80s and never funded any meaningful projects then save for the compilation of a report: Breaking the Silence.

The same donor community that is loud about human rights abuses is also mum about colonial injustices that occurred in the pre-independence era all because their fore-fathers are guilty of perpetrating the crimes of looting, violent invasions, rape, displacements and gruesome mass murder.

The Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project (sorry it's now called National Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project) should have been complete by now had all the so called donor organizations been serious about ensuring that a real basic need like water is available for the people.

Whatever is needed for this project (NMZWP) in terms of cash or kind is definitely not a big problem for Osisa, Cida, Norad, KAF, OTI, PACT and them all to fund and supply us than sponsor women of Zimbabwe to arise, youths to have an agenda, assemblies to be constituted and gays and lesbians to have rights !

That is why there is no single imperial power (read USA, Britain, France) megaphone (media) to date which has clearly opposed in public Nato for killing at least eight people in a air raid on a food warehouse and a medical clinic in Zliatan, east of Tripoli â€" it is all because Nato is their whip for stubborn leaders who have stood in defense of their sovereignty, identity and resources. Leaders that have refused aid with strings of reversing the gains of struggles against blood thirsty imperial warmongers.

Africans are not fools and their memory is not defective thus they know well that that in Rwanda the same donor community and or some countries that are so loud about peace, democracy, human rights and all sorts of liberal rubbish gave Hutus guns and bullets and Tutsis bandages and betadine (and vice versa) to fuel the division and civil strife that was there for their personal gain.

No wonder there are strong assertions to the effect that these countries where donor funds come from have the cure for HIV and AIDS but they will never say a word for it because for them HIV and AIDS are big businesses, that must never stop.

The US$5 billion or so that the Barack Obama government has poured to fighting the disease is nothing built a scapegoat of hiding the truth about America's production levels, GDP, tax, balance of payments and the general standards of living of the ordinary citizens in Katrina.

The so-called ministries / co-operations that manage first world nations' international relations and operate via their NGOs - found in, for example , Britain (DFID), Germany (GTZ), etc purportedly to spearhead development of overseas initiatives in third world countries are just but departments formed to run foreign imperial encroachment in sovereign nations that the "big brothers" have an interest to re-colonize.

As a result governments in Africa have a serious job to do in vetting these donor organizations need their continued operations in our sovereign nation borders on us slowly but surely embracing colonization again, all in the name of aid and some liberal White House or No 10 Dawning Street crazy ideas.

There is a lot that has gone wrong because of these donor organizations that could have happened better without them or with a few sincere ones.

Bhekithemba Ncube is a freelance journalist based in Bulawayo.