Ethiopia is one of the world's most ethnically heterogeneous societies. Throughout the twentieth century, its leaders have been engaged in projects of trying to forge national unity among the peoples brought together by centuries of empire building. Perhaps the greatest progress in this direction was made by reformers under Emperor Haile Selassie, especially in the decades just after World War II. Agendas of national development, however, also fueled the communist revolution that toppled the emperor in 1973. The ensuing government of Haile Mariam Menghistu was extraordinarily ruthless and violent, but nonetheless committed to national unity. It drained the country's resources (and considerable Soviet aid) to fight against the Eritrean liberation fronts, ultimately falling from power as Eritrea won its war for independence. The new government was formed by members of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), speakers of Tigrinya like highland Eritreans, alongside whom they had fought against Menghistu. In fact, though the Amhara had dominated through most of Ethiopia's long imperial history, the primary alternative contenders for dynastic power had been Tigrayans and highland Eritreans. Ethiopia's largest ethnic or national group, the Oromo, had been kept subordinate in most of this history, as had numerous others.

One of Menghistu's policies had been to move large numbers of people from one province to another. This was presented partly as a response to drought and agricultural crisis; it was also a tactic to undercut regional ethnic consciousness. In this and other ways, recent Ethiopian history presents all too many opportunities for analogies with Yugoslavia. A similar process of disintegration is thus a real worry. Eritrean independence seems to have been a critical factor in destablizing the rest of Ethiopia, and whether and with what levels of violence it can be held together are now crucial questions.

The Ethiopian government's decision to expel citizens based on their racial or ethnic identities needs to be considered in this light. Like the rest of the war of which it is a part, it cannot be understood simply in terms of international factors or the ostensible instrumental goals it might accomplish; it is a drama played before a complex array of domestic audiences.

In this case, the most important such audience may be extremists within the Tigray - movement itself. The government in Addis Ababa represents one wing of the old TPLF, that which chose to pursue power within Ethiopia rather than pursuing national independence for a "greater Tigray" (possibly including part of Eritrea). President Meles Zenawi, the leader of this faction, formed the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) to pursue this agenda. Meles never achieved complete domination over Tigrayan politics, however, and has contended with resurgent ethnic consciousness among Oromo and other long-subordinated peoples and resentment from Amharas used to positions of power and privilege as well as from rivals within the Tigray camp. He did not send these rivals on diplomatic or administrative missions elsewhere, but instead allowed them to return to Tigray, where they regrouped and placed more and more pressure on him.

Meles, whose mother is of Eritrean descent, initially went out of his way to maintain friendly relations with Eritrea. This was partly because he recognized the economic interdependence of the countries, partly because Eritrea supported his government (and indeed, Ethiopians of Eritrean descent voted overwhelmingly for it and were encouraged to maintain Ethiopian citizenship and not emigrate in part because of this). This opened him to attack from both Ethiopian nationalists and Tigrayan extremists. Starting in late 1997, possibly, in response to pressure from Tigrayan hard-liners, Meles reduced his communications with his Eritrean counterpart, Issayas Afwerki, and began to sanction a more belligerent posture toward Eritrea. Since war broke out, his speeches have become increasingly hostile.

THE WAR in May and June focused mainly on the Badme region. This is an area on the border between Tigray and Eritrea that has long been in dispute. Tigrayan and Eritrean guerrilla fronts interrupted their alliance against Menghistu to fight there in 1984-85. The region is ethnically mixed, and during the war that ended in 1991, the TPLF and the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) each ended up in control of some territory inhabited mainly by members of the other group. Ironically, in fact, the current fighting is close to Adua, where in 1896 Ethiopia dealt Italy the most important defeat of any European invader in all of Africa. The Battle of Adua left Ethiopia independent and forced Italy to withdraw behind the very Eritrean border now subject to dispute.

At independence, Eritrea claimed the region up to the border drawn by Italy and recognized by imperial Ethiopia. This was also the provincial border between the provinces of Tigray and Eritrea when both were ruled from Addis Ababa. However, there were areas within the Eritrean border that Ethiopia continued to administer. Because of the close friendship between the two governments, however, there seemed no rush to delineate the responsibilities. A bilateral commission was established to determine arrangements in the Badme as well as other areas. It met even up to the first conflict in May. Ethiopia had begun to consolidate control in the disputed region, and Eritrean farmers who had long complained about their treatment by the Tigrayans, began to be forced out. The hand of the Ethiopian national government seems to have been forced by local advocates of a "Greater Tigray." Even as the bilateral commission was supposedly working on a resolution to the dispute, the local forces were taking their own actions. Ethiopia also issued new maps changing the border between the two countries, and enshrined these on its new currency. In May 1998, Ethiopian forces killed three senior Eritrean army officers sent to negotiate, apparently because they refused to disarm at the border claimed by Ethiopia. Eritrea then took Badme by military force, and on multiple fronts quickly routed the Ethiopian army, ending up in control of a sizable swath of Ethiopian territory. This strong military response gave up the last clear chance to avoid war. Ethiopia launched air strikes against the Eritrean capital of Asmara. Eritrea responded with a strike against the Tigrayan city of Mekelle, where its bombs hit a school full of children, and defeated Ethiopia's army to take Zalembessa, inside Ethiopia. Phone calls from President Clinton were apparently instrumental in getting Ethiopia and Eritrea to agree to end their air war. Otherwise, however, U.S. diplomatic interventions were largely incompetent and counterproductive, led by an inexperienced political appointee instead of an experienced diplomat. International mediators have failed largely because they have called for a return to the status quo-ante bellum defined in Ethiopia's favor as that which existed on May 5, rather than taking into account the colonial boundary that the Eritreans believe should define the border.

New economic grievances reinforce old ethnic resentments and boundary disputes. Eritrean independence had left Ethiopia land locked and reliant on Eritrean ports. In 1997, Eritrea infuriated Ethiopia by introducing a new currency, changing the local terms of trade. The Ethiopian government then began to divert its shipping to Djibouti. Before the war, however, both countries were enjoying substantial economic growth.

Just as a grudging peace returned, the expulsions started. Local government authorities in Ethiopia were charged with identifying the Eritreans in their jurisdictions. Not only Eritrean nationals, but lifelong Ethiopian citizens with just one Eritrean parent were expelled, their bank accounts frozen, assets seized. One motivating factor may have been Eritrea's embarrassingly quick defeat of the Ethiopian army. The expulsions may also be in part an attempt to focus discontent on apparent external enemies rather than on either economic crisis or the distribution of power and resources domestically. Investment within Ethiopia has flowed heavily toward Tigray.

When the expulsions increased in early July, UN Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson issued a condemnation. On July 9, President Meles lashed out at her report, asserting that as a sovereign state Ethiopia could deport anyone it chose for any reason, including "if we don't like the color of their eyes." Overshadowed by the World Cup and upheaval in Nigeria, the start of a new African refugee crisis attracted little attention.

On July 19, President Meles said those being deported were spies, many armed. International observers scoff at this, and my own interviews with those expelled confirm their doubts. One was a sixty-four-year-old woman who had lived her entire life in Ethiopia, working as a cleaner in a school. She was linked to Eritrea only by the ethnicity of her father, who had died thirty years ago. The deportees are disproportionately old and retired. Several are disabled veterans of the Ethiopian army. They include school teachers, mechanics, shop owners, Catholic priests, and doctors. Some say neighbors with local grudges reported them as Eritreans; others say their neighbors wept when the police took them away. Businesspeople suspect that Ethiopians want to take over their companies.

ONE GROUP of 102 deportees was sheltered in a school building in Mendefera when I arrived there in mid-July. They came from towns throughout the central and northern regions of Ethiopia. Nearly all were Ethiopian citizens; many had been born in Ethiopia. Dozens had never visited Eritrea and spoke no Eritrean language.

The Ethiopian authorities picked them up at work, at home, at the market, and at the post office. At least two were taken from hospitals where they were undergoing treatment. Some - were held for days; others were immediately put on buses. When they reached the Mereb River, north of Adua, they were released and told to walk across the border. Rain was a blessing; the temperature was over 110¡ Fahrenheit when the previous 453 refugees arrived in Assab.

The newcomers ranged from three-and-a-half to eighty-one years old. Some were unable to walk and had to be carried by others. "We should have seen it coming," said the long-time manager of a sugar factory, "but we just couldn't believe it." One retired UN official showed me his official papers. His last posting had been to war-torn Somalia. "I go from trouble to trouble," he said. "But how can this happen in my home?" A well-dressed businessman said he had his passport ready, with visas for Germany and the United States, but the police simply took it. A forty-seven-year-old woman with a bandaged foot repeated, "I am rich; I have businesses; this should not happen to me." A poor woman cried as she told of children left behind.

A striking dimension of Ethiopian policy is the separation of parents and children. A UN survey reports that 90 percent of refugees left children behind, of whom 15 percent had no one to care for them. A lawyer of half Eritrean parentage, whose wife was in Asmara working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, was forced to leave his four children, ages three to fifteen. One woman was even forced to leave behind her nursing seven-month-old baby--though since then Ethiopian authorities have declared that this was a mistake and that mother and infant may be reunited. At the same time, I met children as young as twelve who had been expelled alone.

Expulsion itself generally means a bus trip of several days to a remote border area. Soldiers then deposit the victims in a no-man's land between the armies that face each other over the border. In some cases this means that the refugees must walk several miles before finding anyone to take them in. Often, Ethiopian soldiers have fired weapons and created the semblance of military movement, perhaps hoping that their Eritrean opponents would fire on the refugees making their way across the border.

So far, Ethiopia has expelled only about 5 percent to 10 percent of its estimated half million citizens with significant Eritrean ancestry. About two thousand cross the border each week. Most report having been held in jails or camps for some time before being sent out of the country. It appears that many thousands of Ethiopians of Eritrean descent have been rounded up but not yet "processed" for expulsion. In addition to Ethiopian citizens of Eritrean descent, the Ethiopian government has imprisoned or expelled most Eritrean nationals who were living or working in Ethiopia. It has refused to allow these to leave by normal routes--that is, by simply taking a plane out of the country--but insisted instead on their forcible deportation. In addition, it has detained Eritrean students who were studying at the University of Addis Ababa on an exchange program; one has died in custody.

DESPITE ECONOMIC crisis, the Eritrean government has welcomed the new arrivals and provided them with support. Many had feared, based on what they heard in Ethiopia, that Eritrea was in the midst of famine (which it is not) and that the government was on the verge of collapse. In fact, Eritrean authorities are giving each a modest cash allowance (approximately $200 per family) and working with some international support to provide for their health, education, and needs. In the long run, say leaders, these people will be assets to the country. In the short run, the biggest difficulty is simply to house them.

In Eritrea, the war has not had the effect of weakening the government or sowing disunity. On the contrary, Eritreans are impressively united behind their government and national consciousness has only grown. Even the half million or more Eritreans in the diaspora outside Africa, often critics of the government, have joined in support. This is expressed not just verbally, but in financial donations that have come close to making up for the shortfall in trade. On the other hand, crisis conditions have slowed implementation of Eritrea's new Constitution and progress toward democracy. More than 175,000 of Eritrea's 2.5 million citizens are now mobilized for military or other national service.

In Ethiopia, despite an early rallying around the government, the result of the war seems to be ever-greater divisions among ethnic groups. The Ethiopian Constitution of 1993 was an extraordinary experiment in multicultural democracy, providing for varying levels of autonomy and even rights of secession for the country's many ethnic groups (up to eighty-two by one count). Many fear that a collapse of the current government will bring chaos, and perhaps even break up the country. Violent ethnic division could be a calamity.