Bush Says He’s ‘Delighted’ by Death of Notorious Colombian Drug Lord : War on Narcotics: At summit with Mitterrand, he hails a ‘courageous effort’ by Bogota.

President Bush on Saturday hailed the death of a notorious drug trafficker in a half-hour gun battle in Colombia, saying he was “delighted” that Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha had been “brought to bay.”

With French President Francois Mitterrand at his side after the two met on this sun-swept French Caribbean island, Bush said at a news conference that the police action that ended in Rodriguez Gacha’s death was “a very courageous effort on the part of the Colombians.”

The two presidents spent about three hours together, their sixth meeting since Bush took office 11 months ago. The meeting, which included a beachside luncheon, was arranged by Mitterrand to give them an opportunity to review the sudden collapse of one-party Communist rule in much of Eastern Europe.

At the news conference, Bush also spoke of last weekend’s secretly arranged visit to China by National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger. Their mission has already produced “a couple of indications” of positive results, he said without elaborating.

A White House official said later that the President was referring to China’s decision to accept a new Voice of America correspondent in Beijing. Chinese authorities had expelled the VOA correspondent last summer.

The Scowcroft-Eagleburger trip drew sharp criticism from Democrats, as well as some Republicans, who said Bush was moving too quickly to renew the U.S. relationship with China in the wake of the massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tian An Men Square last June. Bush has argued that he did not want to isolate China’s 1 billion citizens and risk punishing them.

Bush said Saturday, however, that it is not yet time for the international community to relax trade and other sanctions imposed on China last summer.”

“I think we’ve made the right step, and only time will tell how this leadership in China views the mission,” Bush said.

Mitterrand, suggesting that he was not in perfect step with Bush on the subject of China, remarked curtly when a question about China was addressed to him that the two discussed the matter and that Bush had explained his views.

The presidential meeting, in an airy, tan-and-brown-striped tent within sight of the Caribbean Sea, provided Bush and Mitterrand with an opportunity to review the private meetings that each has held within the past two weeks with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Mitterrand met with Gorbachev in Kiev a few days after Bush and Gorbachev met at the Malta summit in the Mediterranean.

Bush’s comments on the Colombian shoot-out were his first in public since Friday’s slaying of Rodriguez Gacha, a leader of the Medellin cartel that has waged a campaign of terror to maintain the world’s biggest cocaine empire. Rodriguez Gacha and six others, including his son Freddy Rodriguez Celades, were tracked by a special police unit to a remote hide-out on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.

Ever since President Virgilio Barco Vargas of Colombia declared war on his nation’s drug traffickers last August, Bush has sought ways to publicly show his support for Barco. He has decided to attend a conference of presidents of three Andean nations--Colombia, Peru and Bolivia--on Feb. 15 in Cartagena, a Caribbean resort city and drug-trafficking center less than 100 miles from the place where Rodriguez Gacha died.

“The cooperation (with Colombia) has been superb,” Bush said. “I was delighted yesterday when the Colombian government brought to bay” Rodriguez Gacha.

“This narcoterrorism is simply outrageous and unacceptable. And when you see a president of an embattled country, and Colombia fits that description, doing its level best to bring them to justice, I think we ought to all salute them,” Bush said.

Bush and Mitterrand, dressed informally in open-neck shirts and sports jackets, have apparently begun to develop a special relationship, despite historical differences between France and the United States--at least in nuance--on a variety of subjects.

Mitterrand, for example, has responded more warmly to Gorbachev’s call for a 35-nation East-West conference on the future of Europe next year. Bush has favored a go-slow approach.

The two indicated Saturday that such differences were not major, but Mitterrand stressed the need for a coordinated, cooperative approach.

“If the horses of the team don’t move at the same speed, there will be an accident,” he said, adding: “We cannot stay where we were before the collapse of all the walls between the peoples of Europe.”

The two agreed that they favored a cautious approach to the question of German reunification, and Bush expressed his willingness to offer “emergency food aid” to East Germany this winter if it is required.

The warming Franco-American relationship is much like the friendship that developed between former President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher--this despite Bush’s conservative Republican approach and Mitterrand’s long role as a leader of the French Socialist Party.

Asked whether such a friendship between the White House and the Elysee Palace could have developed before Jan. 20, 1989, the date of Bush’s inauguration, Mitterrand arched his eyebrows quizzically and said, “Avant le vingt Janvier? (Before the 20th of January?) What happened on the 20th of January?” Bush appeared to stifle a grin.

Mitterrand was the host of the meeting, conducted on this sandy speck of French territory about 140 miles east of Puerto Rico. The French leader fielded perhaps three-quarters of the questions asked by reporters at their news conference--a break for Bush who is suffering from laryngitis and a cold.

The President--who is taking aspirin, throat lozenges and a decongestant, according to White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater--spoke in a slightly hoarse voice.