ABSTRACT
The Washington Post reported that during a rally of 300 students of Hailed Selassie University, effigies of Johnson and the American dollar were burnt to protest American involvement in Vietnam. As the shadow of Vietnam loomed larger over the Johnson administration, especially after the introduction of ground troops in March 1965, the deprioritisation of Africa made more sense. The Cairo Resolution made it crystal clear that the Organisation of African Unity would not support Somali irredentism, leaving the Somalis only one choice if they wished to realise their dreams of ‘Greater Somalia’: reliance on sources of support that lay outside Africa. The Somali people were not as keen as their leaders on the apparent abandonment of irredentist territorial ambitions, and, Eritrea notwithstanding, there were signs of unrest against the aging emperor’s somewhat autocratic rule in Ethiopia. Within the Horn of Africa, the nation most profoundly affected by this was Somalia.
