By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 13 1998; Page A43

In nearly every country in sub-Saharan Africa, including many under some form of U.S. sanctions, American soldiers are teaching basic infantry skills, building bridges over flood-prone rivers, and imparting lessons in civics and medical care in tented schoolrooms.

During the past two years alone, elite U.S special operations troops have traveled to 22 countries in the region to train foreign forces in reconnaissance, small-unit tactics and counterinsurgency techniques.

The programs are part of the Pentagon's worldwide effort to cultivate military-to-military contacts. In the case of Africa, senior defense officials are beginning to argue in private that arms and training restrictions should be liberalized to enable the U.S. military to create deeper relationships. Defense officials also want more flexibility to hire private organizations to train and equip friendly militaries, senior defense officials said.

"Sanctions have been a massive failure," said James Woods, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs and now a consultant who represents African countries. "It's a very crude instrument and causes some nations to behave even worse."

As in other parts of the world, Pentagon officials think that military-to-military contacts will give the United States influence in regional disputes and that U.S. training will lead to improved military human rights practices and stability.

But the road to those achievements is long in Africa, where many militaries are loyal to political parties or tribes and are composed of bands of ill-trained, undisciplined troops. Recent conflicts in Congo, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Nigeria and Angola underline the still unstable nature of many African nations.

At least 17 countries in sub-Saharan Africa are under some variety of sanctions imposed by Congress or the administration because of coups, human rights violations, failure to repay U.S. loans or political unrest.

Nevertheless, Defense Department programs in Africa have grown substantially over the past decade, when the end of the Cold War also ended a U.S.-Soviet rivalry on the continent. Since then, regional U.S. military commanders and Pentagon leaders have organized dozens of small-scale military assistance programs.

Over the past year, U.S. soldiers have participated in humanitarian assistance programs -- typically medical care and infrastructure repairs -- in more than two dozen African countries, according to Defense Department documents. They are training African mine-clearing units in seven countries and participated in small-scale military exercises or lead basic military skills training in 20 African nations.

Under the African Regional Response Initiative, U.S. troops are training battalions in seven countries. The Pentagon has paid for and sent troops to exercises such as Natural Fire in Kenya, which this year marked the first time that troops from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have trained together. About 400 U.S. troops were involved.

Congress this year approved $42 million for use over six years for an African Center for Security Studies. It will bring top-ranking officers and civilians to U.S.-style academic seminars on civil-military relations and management of defense bureaucracies.

Pentagon officials had hoped to find a permanent home for the center in Africa but were unable to locate a country other than South Africa -- which declined to host it -- where the political situation was sufficiently stable, transportation was reliable and school and housing standards were conducive to accommodating a permanent U.S. staff.

The Pentagon also is pushing to establish formal, legal relationships with at least five regional African organizations, such as the Economic Committee of West African States.

Despite all the activity, senior defense officials acknowledge that their programs often lack focus and have been ill-coordinated with the State Department, among U.S. military commands and with Western allies such as France and Britain, which have long-standing interests and relationships in Africa.

"There really has been no overarching Defense Department strategy," said Col. Dan Henk, director of African studies at the U.S. Army War College, who nevertheless thinks the engagement is constructive for both sides.

Senior defense officials have held recent meetings with U.S. commanders-in-chief and U.S. ambassadors to Africa to improve coordination and to gather support for pushing Congress and the administration to rethink restrictions on U.S. assistance.

Defense officials argue that, even if Africa is not vital to U.S. security interests, economic prosperity will not come without more stable regimes. U.S. military commanders need stable relationships with their African counterparts, and knowledge of a country's infrastructure, to facilitate future humanitarian operations.

Since 1990, the U.S. military has conducted 16 evacuations of U.S. citizens from 10 African countries and another six humanitarian relief operations, according to Pentagon officials.

John Marks, president of the nonprofit Search for Common Ground, which operates several projects in Africa, said many humanitarian groups support U.S. military involvement in Africa, but think it should be focused on teaching African forces to be apolitical and to operate under civilian political control.

"But the Pentagon bureaucracy is not geared up for that," he said. The only permanent U.S. military presence is the defense attache, whose job is to collect intelligence for the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Security Assistance Officers, whose job is to coordinate arms transfers and sales and some training programs. "Putting more weapons in the hands of the military in Africa is like putting more gasoline on the fire," Marks said.