Three years of little or no rain have put Ethiopians once again face to face with starvation, while their government busies itself with a border war. For those who would provide aid, this combination raises some profound and difficult questions. PNS commentator Paul Jeffreys writes on international development issues for the National Catholic Reporter and other publications.

ADDIS ABABA -- Do only rich nations have the right to wage war? Should poor countries engaged in bloody battles be punished by having food aid turned off?

These questions are driving a fierce debate among public and private relief agencies around the world as they grapple with how to address, at one time, the problems of some 10 million Ethiopians who are running out of food and water and an Ethiopian government in Addis Ababa at war with its neighbor Eritrea.

Sora Guyo is one of many who has lost hope. In ordinary times, he roams through the Great Rift Valley in southern Ethiopia leading his cattle and goats through grasslands watered by seasonal rains.

But three years of erratic or missing rainfall have turned lean times into impossible times. Sora's cattle died and their carcasses today litter the desert along with those of thousands of other animals who died in recent weeks.

Sora, emaciated and leaning heavily on his staff, walks from a temporary camp in the desert into the village of Dubuluch to sell some firewood he's scavenged. His wife and three children, weakened from hunger, remain behind in a simple hut.

Even if it starts raining soon, Sora's animals are gone and would take years to replace. He doesn't know what will happen next.

"In the old days, we would have gone and stolen some cattle from the Somalis," he says. "Today, we can't do that. I don't know what we're going to do."

Ethiopia's leaders don't appear too concerned about Sora for the moment. Their attention is on a 620-mile-long war front with Eritrea, where tens of thousands have been killed in old-fashioned trench warfare during the last two years.

The heaviest combat has come in the last week. The UN Security Council arms embargo, imposed on May 17, came way too late.

Both drought-plagued nations have spent a fortune on weapons, including fighter jets and attack helicopters from Russia -- which dragged its feet on the UN resolution until the shopping spree was complete. The fighting is expected to continue until one side -- probably Ethiopia -- achieves a military victory.

Ethiopia denies diverting relief aid to the war front, but it is clear that critical resources simply aren't available. With so many trucks pressed into ferrying fighters and arms to the front, for example, getting food to remote areas is delayed while relief agencies hustle for alternative transport.

Claire Short, the British government minister for overseas development, recently took Ethiopia to task. "I do not believe that anyone in the U.K. believes we should be providing long-term assistance to a country which is increasing its spending on arms, year on year," she declared.

Several countries and the World Bank have cut development assistance to Ethiopia to protest the war. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi responded that his country wants "to reduce defense spending and focus on food security. To do that we have to get rid of this war."

Buoyed by general popular support for his policies at home, Meles has dismissed criticism of his war effort, reminding northern powers that they fought in the Balkans while homeless people slept on their city streets.

"In Ethiopia, we do not wait to have a full tummy to protect our sovereignty," Meles declared in April. "We do not believe that sovereignty is a luxury for the rich."

Relief officials have waded into the debate. Christian Balslev-Olesen, general secretary of DanChurchAid, the development arm of the Danish Lutheran Church and a channel abroad for Danish government moneys, criticized Short's comments as "foolish." It is "cynical and almost criminal," he said, "when parts of the Western world refuse to help the starving people of Ethiopia because of the war. These people are paying with their lives for a mistaken policy."

Balslev-Olesen strongly criticized European Union officials for having fallen behind in shipping grain to Ethiopia's Strategic Food Reserve, a buffer against famine.

It worked well throughout the 1990s. Last year, however, the system broke down when several loans of grain from the buffer were not repaid in a timely manner. Cuprits included the European Union, the United States and the UN World Food Program. Many in government here feel the delay in replenishing reserve stocks carried a political message.

Peter With, a food security expert with DanChurchAid, blames the shortage of food on the European Commissions' insistence that the government here spend less on war and become more self-sufficient in food.

"The replenishment of the Reserve must never be made conditional on resolving complex political issues," With says.

Meanwhile the parched southern and eastern regions of Ethiopia continue to bake under a hot sun. Soya leans on his staff and watches the horizon, waiting for the one thing he knows will begin to solve the crisis. But there is no rain in sight.