In a speech marked by remarkable candour and insight, Mandela called into question some of the fundamental assumptions of the new global orthodoxy that holds that all countries must uniformly address "such questions as budget deficits, rates of inflation, interest and exchange rates, capital movements, the flexibility of labour markets, and affordability of social welfare and so on."

Mandela said that any obsessive focus on just these economic reforms would be tantamount to "deifying the means to an end." In the process, "we (may) forget that the purpose of it all is the continued and sustained improvement of the material and spiritual life of each and every citizen."

While touching on several social and political issues normally associated with NAM meetings, Mandela sought to bring the focus back to poverty,development, and real economic issues faced by the poor countries of the world.

Among the issues he raised are:

* Whether the current crisis in the world economy can be solved by orthodox presciptions, and whether the world can help the poor by drawing on the same impulses that created a Marshall Plan for Europe after the second World War.

* Whether the world can move fast to reduce the burden of excess debt on some developing countries. According to Mandela, the current economic problems of Japan are the result of excess wealth and excess wealth in one area contributes to poverty in another. Whether there is really aid fatigue among the rich when most citizens of rich countries tend to contribute generously to combat famine, deprivation and other good causes throughout the world.

Mandela decried the western attitude of setting too much store by market economics, where market instruments and mechanisms are "an ineluctable force in the face of whose power all who aspire towards human dignity must bowin respectable obeisance." In this context, Mandela called for a higher quality of political leadership in the rich North.

"I believe we have a right to expect a quality of political leadership among those who are well off "which rejects the concept of each for himself and the devil take the hindmost." But Mandela was equally firm that if the poor expected a higher quality of leadership in the North, NAM cannot settle for lower standards for itself.

Calling for solutions to the world's long-standing unsolved issues -- from terrorism, to nuclear disarmament, to reform of the UN, to armed conflict in various troublespots of the world, including Kashmir and the Congo -- Mandela called on NAM to convert itself from a mere talkshop to something that means business.

A worrying aspect, from India's point of view, of Mandela's address to the inaugural session of the 12th conference of heads of state and government was his reference to the resolution of the Kashmir dispute -- perhaps the first-ever by a NAMchairman. South Africa took over as chairman of NAM from Columbia today, the immediate reference to Kashmir constitutes a setback for Indian diplomacy at NAM.

In sharp contrast to the views of Nelson Mandela, the UN secretary-general Kofi Annan had the opposite message: Don't fight globalisation. Talking about the southeast Asian financial crisis, Annan said it would be wrong to blame it on globalisation. "There is a temptation to retreat into our shells; to go back to the old economics of state planning and protectionism...But do those voices have a real alternative to offer? I suggest that for better or worse there is no such choice."

However, even Annan was clear that there is need for much faster action to relieve unsustainable debt burdens on some countries; reverse the decline in developmental aid; and make sure that globalisation and liberalisation are not a one-way street. The "industrialised countries must open their markets to goods from the developing world."

Earlier, the outgoing chairman ofNAM, Columbian president Andres Pastrana-Arango, said that one of the challenges of the future was to "ensure that globalisation is compatible with the correction of social imbalances, and will close the breach between the industrialised countries and the developing countries."