U.S. GENERAL TO OVERSEE COLOMBIA AID

MIAMI (Reuters) - Illustrating the extent of U.S. military involvement in
Colombia, military sources said on Wednesday that the Pentagon plans to
post an army general in the troubled Latin American nation to oversee
implementation of parts of Washington's $1.3 billion aid package.

The news came as President Clinton was on a one-day trip to Colombia to
underline U.S. support for Bogota's campaign against drug trafficking and
Marxist rebels.

Washington's contribution to Bogota's $7.5 billion ``Plan Colombia''
against drugs, which includes helicopters and military training, is the
biggest military foray the United States has made into Latin America since
the 1980s. The new appointee, if the posting goes ahead, will be the only
U.S. general in South or Central America.

Brig. Gen. Keith Huber, director of operations at the U.S. Southern Command
in Miami, which is command headquarters for most military operations in
Latin America and the Caribbean, has been tapped to go to Bogota to oversee
the military portion of the U.S. $1.3 billion contribution to Plan
Colombia, the sources said.

A Southern Command spokesman, Raul Duany, asked about Huber's posting, said
only that a decision had not yet been made. He declined to give any other
details.

Huber, 47, a 25-year Army career officer with a background in special
forces and experience in counterinsurgency including a stint in El
Salvador, would report to the commander in chief of the Southern Command,
the military sources said.

``Somebody On The Ground'' In Colombia

``For the last year or so he (Huber) has been focusing on Colombia,'' said
a military source who asked not to be named. ``What this does is puts him
on the ground to make the initial implementation (of the military part of
the package) as smooth as possible.''

``It gives the Southcom commander somebody on the ground.''

The military sources said that if the posting went ahead, it would be
Huber, and he would travel to Colombia in mid-September on a posting that
would be expected to last around six months.

The Southern Command, or Southcom, is currently headed by Marine Gen.
Charles Wilhelm, who was accompanying Clinton on his trip to Cartagena,
Colombia on Wednesday. Wilhelm is retiring next week and is slated to be
replaced by Marine Lt. Gen. Peter Pace.

Huber served as a brigade field advisor in 1987 in El Salvador, where the
United States was long involved in that Central American nation's civil war
between the government and leftist rebels.

He was operations director with the 101st Airborne Army division in the
Gulf War and the build-up to it in 1990 and 1991 and was also operations
chief for the United Nations mission to restore democracy in Haiti in 1995.

The U.S. aid package for Colombia includes 60 military helicopters and
training for two special army battalions that will seek to protect
Colombian police missions to destroy drug plantations and labs in
guerrilla-controlled areas of southern Colombia.

Colombia's main rebel forces and key labor organizations have condemned the
U.S. plan, saying it signals growing U.S. intervention that could inflame
Colombia's three-decade-old conflict.