THE battlefront between Ethiopia and Eritrea has now been quiet for more than two months. Nobody believes that peace has broken out. On the contrary, everybody is waiting for the rain to stop, and for the fighting to begin again.

The first round, a series of border clashes, began on May 6th. It came as a shock. The leaders of the two countries—Eritrea’s Issaias Afwerki and Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi—were close allies in the long years of war against the dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam. After their joint victory, Ethiopia agreed to Eritrean independence with grace and goodwill. Were not these two rulers shining examples of the new breed of African leader?

Round two, when Eritrean aircraft bombed a school at Mekele and Ethiopian aircraft hit the airport at Asmara, Eritrea’s capital, brought home the fact that this was war, not a border skirmish. The United States and Rwanda, allies of both countries, dispatched a peace-making team, which called on both sides to pull their troops back and seek arbitration. But the Eritreans, who had advanced farther than the Ethiopians, refused, saying they wanted a ceasefire and a negotiated demarcation of the border. The Organisation of African Unity then made its bid, calling for withdrawal and sending a delegation to negotiate with both governments. It is to present its proposals shortly. But both sides are still spitting at each other, determined, it seems, to fight again.

How did relations between former allies turn so sour so suddenly? Eritrean independence was agreed by the leaders of the present governments when they were still fighting a guerrilla war in the late 1970s. In 1991, when Mr Mengistu was overthrown, Eritrean independence was de facto but, like an amicable divorce, it became de jure without a properly drawn-up settlement. The ownership of many things, including long sections of the border, was never agreed. The two governments adopted different political and economic systems and when their interests conflicted—when, for instance, Eritrea launched its own currency last November—the friendship turned bitter. Now it is as if they were about to fight the real war of Eritrean independence.

When the shooting war died down in late June, Eritrea held more ground but Ethiopia was ahead in the moral stakes: most people accept that it was Eritrea that had started the fighting. Both sides have continued to pour out propaganda, mostly about the persecution of their nationals. Eritrea has regained some sympathy by claiming that more than 20,000 of its people have been deported from Ethiopia, often brutally and on tenuous grounds. Some 2,000 Eritreans have been detained in Ethiopia and their property confiscated.

Ethiopia and Eritrea are two of the poorest countries in Africa, but both have been furiously rearming. Ethiopia has turned to Israel to modernise its MiG-21 fighter-bombers or supply refurbished ones; Eritrea has been seeking small arms from Bulgaria and Ukraine. There are also reports that Ethiopia’s rebel movements, the Oromo Liberation Front and the Islamist al-Itahad, based in Somalia, have been invited by Eritrea to Asmara.

Both Mr Issaias and Mr Meles are tough ex-fighters whose language rarely exceeds their intentions. At one time their personal friendship would have overcome a relatively trivial border dispute but now they both may be looking to victory to protect themselves. Mr Issaias, whose economic policies have brought little benefit to the country’s ex-guerrillas, is using anti-Ethiopian sentiment to build nationalism. Mr Meles, suspected by other Ethiopians of being too soft on Eritrea, has had to prove he is a true defender of Ethiopia. His private letters to Mr Issaias in the lead-up to the border dispute were published and severely criticised at a meeting of the ruling party. Significantly, he has been left off the military council set up to conduct the war.

While most allies of both countries are left shrugging their shoulders at what seems an unnecessary war, one neighbour, Sudan, has gained from it. Six months ago, its Islamist government was in peril, surrounded by American-backed enemies helping its rebels. Now, with Uganda to the south embroiled in Congo, and Eritrea and Ethiopia at each other’s throats, the Sudanese regime looks a lot safer.