Drug Summit Ends in Pact : Talks Wrap Up After 2 1/2 Hours

President Bush and the leaders of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, holding a drug-fighting summit under an unusually heavy air, sea and land security cover, reached agreement today on a coordinated attack against narcotics producers and murderous traffickers.

After Bush signed a series of drug-fighting agreements concluding the 2 1/2-hour summit, he and Colombian President Virgilio Barco Vargas said in a joint statement that the summit was “a significant step toward improved anti-drug coordination.”

The leaders were to have met in the afernoon after the 2 1/2-hour morning session, but that meeting became unneccessary.

Bush promised to seek expanded U.S. markets for Colombian products, part of an effort to coax Andean producers out of the coca business and into growing other crops.

Bush and Barco conferred separately during the four-nation meeting.

Colombia has complained that U.S. trade policy is hurting its major legal exports, including coffee, cut flowers and sugar.

Among other steps taken at the summit meeting, held at a tightly guarded naval base off this Caribbean resort city:

- An agreement with Bolivia to help stem the movement of U.S. firearms into South American nations. The U.S. government will be more restrictive in issuing export licenses for firearms and will work “domestically to suppress the flow of smuggled arms,” the agreement stated.

- An agreement with Peru to enhance “effective law enforcement cooperation” that places a high priority on extradition of fugitives to stand trial in the country where they are accused.

- Tax agreements with Bolivia and Peru that would permit exchange of tax records, bank statements and other information “to uncover illicit drug profits, trace drug money laundering and generally to further civil and criminal tax investigations.”

- Agreements with Bolivia and Peru to establish a computerized network with a database on anti-drug activities.

Barco told the summit members on their arrival at Cartagena that “we shall move forward in spite of the sacrifices that we have had to take on.

“No, we will not weaken, we will not let the deaths of thousands of Colombians be in vain,” said Barco, whose country has been ravaged by bombings, assassinations and other violence from drug lords and leftist guerrillas.

At mid-morning, Bush, Barco, and Presidents Alan Garcia of Peru and Jaime Paz of Bolivia strolled briefly in 85-degree heat along the shore of Cartagena Bay, admiring the panoramic skyline of the sun-drenched city in the distance, before they entered the rugged old stone Ft. Manzanillo to begin their talks.

Security was extraordinarily tight around the summit site. Patrol boats sped along the shore with machine guns pointed inland, and a Colombian frigate was stationed just off the peninsula. Across Cartagena Bay, the wharves were empty, and the streets of this resort city--normally packed with traffic and pedestrians--were virtually abandoned.

Security concerns were heightened when suspected pro-Cuban guerrillas kidnaped two Americans in and near Medellin earlier this week and seized an American priest today. The abductions were apparently to protest Bush’s trip to Colombia.