Tito’s Death and His Political Legacy, 1980 445
After the passage of the constitution of 1974, Yugoslavia organized a special
solidarity fund for non-aligned and developing countries. It was grafted onto
the aid program that already existed in the form of loans and technical assis-
tance and instruction offered to the youth of the Third World by Yugoslav high
schools and universities. The aim of the new fund was to offer coordinated aid
to the national liberation movements under the supervision of the Socialist
Alliance of Working People. In a period when the Palestine Liberation Orga-
nization (PLO) was isolated internationally, Tito was one of the first to support
it. He even went so far as to indirectly approve some terrorist actions by its
members, stressing that subjugated peoples had the right to use every means
in the fight for their liberty. It is no wonder that, in the last decade of Tito’s
life, Yasser Arafat, the leader of the PLO, was his guest at least once a year. He
met even more frequently with the leader of the Angolan guerrillas, Agostinho
Neto, since Yugoslavia organized training courses for the People’s Movement
for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), as well as for similar groups in Guinea
Bissau and Mozambique, providing them with weapons, food, and medicine.
In November 1975 when Angola’s independence was proclaimed, the troops
of the South African Union, a part of Zaire’s regular army, as well as some
dissident Angolan movements attacked from all sides in an attempt to occupy
the capital, Luanda, and to suffocate the MPLA. Tito ordered military assis-
tance for the MPLA, sending two ships of the Yugoslav Navy to Angola,
which intervened in a decisive manner. As local leaders later affirmed, the inde-
pendence struggle that culminated in the Luanda battle was won thanks to
Yugoslav help.^77
Tito was on good terms with the rebellious leader of Rhodesia (later Zim-
babwe), Robert Mugabe, although Yugoslavia did not discriminate against the
other liberation movement, headed by Joshua Nkomo. Generally, however, it
followed the norm of having regular relations only with the movements rec-
ognized by the Organization of African Unity and by the non-aligned. The
Polisario Front, the national liberation movement of Western Sahara, was not
included among these. When Tito died, however, members of this movement
also attended his funeral—unannounced. The protocol officers at first thought
they belonged to the vanguard of the Algerian president, only to find out later
they were mistaken. To explain their presence a tall, raven-haired young man
said: “We are Tito’s sons. We have to pay him our last respects.”^78 Obviously
they were accepted despite the Moroccan protests.
The Independence of the Non-AlignedIn the years of his decline, Tito was preoccupied with the independence of the
Non-Aligned Movement. In that period he visited Kuwait to strengthen the