OAS CALLS ON COUNTRIES TO WORK ON CUTTING DEBT, STEP UP DRUG FIGHT

The Organization of American States closed its annual assembly Saturday with resolutions calling for greater efforts against drug trafficking and cooperation in relieving Latin America's debt burden.

One resolution called for a "wider program against the production, consumption and trafficking of drugs," one of the central themes of the assembly.Regarding Latin America's crippling foreign debt, the OAS passed a resolution to confront the problem "in accordance with the balance of the financial system and shared responsiblity of debtor and creditor nations."

No concrete proposals were divulged for either issue.

"We must adjust the rhetoric to action," OAS Secratary-General Joao Clemente Soares said. "What we did here I think is proof of what we can do, and we are going to speed up and strengthen the role of this forum . . . the OAS is different now than what it was some time ago. Now it is a reality."

The assembly also approved a human rights report that was critical of Chile, Paraguay and Cuba, and passed a resolution praising the people of El Salvador and President Jose Napoleon Duarte.

The motion expressed admiration for "the efforts of the Salvadoran people in the construction of a pluralist democracy," and particularly "the valor and courage of Duarte in carrying out the democratic process."

The meeting in San Salvador was widely viewed as Duarte's political swan song. The Salvadoran president, the United States' closest ally in the region, is suffering from terminal stomach and liver cancer.

Although talks focused mainly on Latin America's debt crisis and the continuing problem of drug trafficking, the annual OAS assembly drew some attention to the civil war and the plight of Salvadorans who must live through it.

Friday, hundreds of members of El Salvador's largest labor union marched through the heavily guarded streets of San Salvador to protest what they called U.S. intervention in their country and deliver a message to the OAS meeting.

The protesters accused the United States of inflicting "tragedy and genocide against our people."

The Reagan administration has given $3 billion in economic and military aid since 1980 to the Salvadoran government.