Summit Turned Disparate Policies Into Unifying Goal : Drug war: Bush and South American leaders hope other nations will join alliance forged in Cartagena.

The Cartagena summit marked important progress toward harmonizing the once-disparate drug policies of the United States and the three cocaine-producing countries of South America, as well as reinforcing their resolve to fight cocaine traffic together, Latin American officials said Friday.

“The results were precisely what we needed, a more aggressive commitment by all of the countries here,” said Gen. Miguel Maza Marquez, the commander of Colombia’s intelligence police.

When President Bush met Thursday in Cartagena with the presidents of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, the drug policies of the four countries already had evolved into at least the semblance of common purpose.

The U.S. government had gradually accepted the South American governments’ view that they cannot stop cocaine traffic as long as widespread consumption by Americans keeps demand for the drug strong. The three South American governments, in turn, had acceded by degrees to the U.S. view that cocaine was not just an American problem and that tough police action and eradication of illicit coca plantations is in the Andean countries’ interest.

And both sides had come to realize that the Andean countries need outside economic support, including aid and favorable terms of trade, to effectively carry out the costly campaign against cocaine.

By re-emphasizing those and other points of agreement, officials said, Thursday’s summit communique, called the Declaration of Cartagena, strengthened a spirit of cooperation among the four governments.

President Jaime Paz Zamora of Bolivia said before leaving this Caribbean port city Friday morning that the meeting was an inspiring success.

“May it be maintained as a shining summit for Latin Americans, leading to concrete achievements,” Paz told reporters.

He said Bush promised to present the Cartagena meeting’s call for concerted multinational action against drugs to the seven leading industrialized nations at their annual meeting in Houston next July.

“Imagine, if the Big Seven adopt the thesis of Cartagena on the integral fight against narcotraffic, it will mean that we have the commitment of the most powerful ones on the planet,” he said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Secretary of State James A. Baker III will address a United Nations special session on the drug problem.

“The United States is hopeful that the special session will result in a stronger, more balanced, multilateral role for the United Nations in drug control,” Boucher said.

Bush, who had returned from Cartagena on Thursday night, met with his Cabinet to brief them on the results. He waved off reporters’ questions, however. In emphasizing that the anti-cocaine action must be multinational and coordinated, Paz said: “What we have said to President Bush is that we commit ourselves to not grow excess coca leaf, but they must commit themselves to not increase demand and to never again produce another addicted mayor in their capital. . . .

“In effect, I believe this meeting has served to put things in their place,” he added.

A U.S. source who asked not to be identified said a major purpose of the summit for the U.S. side was to get Bolivia and Peru to increase efforts for eradicating coca plantations. The two countries produce the bulk of the leaves from which cocaine is made and which are also legally chewed by Andean Indians.

In the past, both Bolivia and Peru have repeatedly demanded greater U.S. aid in return for eradication, while the United States has conditioned economic aid on progress in eradication. The result has been much wrangling and less than full cooperation.

“Let’s hope that we have created a better climate for cooperation, that they won’t keep harping on this dollar for dollar thing,” the U.S. source said.

He said that, with a U.S. promise of increased attention to the Andean countries’ economic needs in the Cartagena declaration, “we should have more leverage--leverage is not the right word--but more cooperation from them in policing their own countries.”

He cautioned, however, that Congress is unlikely to approve as much aid as the South American countries would like.

“I would call it an increased emphasis on the economic side, but I wouldn’t call it an Alliance for Progress or a Marshall Plan for the Andean countries,” he said.

But Bolivian Foreign Minister Carlos Iturralde said Friday that at least $3.5 billion was required by his country if it is to replace 173,000 acres of coca leaf production .

Julio Londono, the Colombian foreign minister, told reporters that Colombia had long sought more U.S. attention to the link between effective anti-drug efforts and economic progress in the Andean countries. The Declaration of Cartagena signals a change in the U.S. approach, he said.

He said the United States also “recognizes for the first time that consumption is the central, generating element of this problem” of drug traffic.

Such changes in the American point of view “seemed impossible” three years ago, Londono said.

The Bogota newspaper El Espectador, which has pressed an editorial crusade against drug traffickers, said Friday that the summit conclusions “are a definitive step toward what may be the final offensive against the most noxious, dangerous and costly scourge afflicting humanity today.”

El Universal of Cartagena applauded U.S. commitments at the summit. “The promise of more economic aid for development and an increase in the intensity of control over internal consumption cleared the way toward harmony that . . . undoubtedly means a change in the great anti-drug crusade,” said an editorial in the paper.

But there are bound to be obstacles along the way. For one, the multibillion-dollar cocaine trade spawns official corruption, giving traffickers their most effective shield. And because the cocaine-producing countries are poor, their institutions are often ill-equipped to control the resource-rich drug business. It is not clear what amount of development aid might be needed to change this lopsided relationship.

As some Colombian commentators have observed, how can the United States expect South American governments to control cocaine production and smuggling when it has been unable to control the lucrative marijuana business at home or to effectively prosecute its own drug barons?

“It is hoped that in their secret conversations, the Latin American presidents have told these truths to Mr. Bush,” wrote Ricardo Velez Parejo, an El Universal columnist.