Politics

Sai Leun a.k.a Lin Mingxian, leader of Special Region #4, tucked away in eastern Shan State's northeastern corner, has recovered from his protracted illness following a second massive stroke late 2001, said sources.

Sai Leun, called by the Burmese as U Sai Lin, made his first public appearance during the annual water festival in April, according to them. He was later reported by The New Light of Myanmar, Rangoon's official organ, as one of the well-wishers welcoming Gen Khin Nyunt at Kengtung airport on 18 may.

"He has also resumed his former responsibilities as president of the National Democratic Alliance Army (Eastern Shan State), a post he had conferred to Sarm Per, one of his trusted lieutenants, during his long illness," said the source in Tachilek.

His comeback, however, coincided with China's recall for their tens of thousands of citizens residing in Mongla (Ref: Mongla crashes as Chinese leave, S.H.A.N., 18 July 2003) leaving the once booming city "dry', as the NDAA's main revenue derived from tourists form the neighboring Chinese province of Yunnan.

"Sai Leun had declared his domain drug free in 1997," said an insider source. "The Chinese latest action will be a test of how long he can hold Mongla away form drugs."

Lin had been, until 2000, among the ten drug suspects blacklisted by the United States. The State Department's annual report dropped his name from the list that year.

According to Invisible Borders: Reportage from Our Mekong, published in May by Bangkok-based Inter Press Service Asia-Pacific, the special region, 5,000 square kilometers and 74,000 people, was founded on 30 June 1989. Mongla is less than 10 km from the border checkpoint. Its revenue last year was 80 million yuan ($ 9.6 million). More than 80 percent of employees of the region's government are Chinese migrants. It has, until recently, witnessed an influx of 350,000 tourists per year since 1996, most of them day trippers form China.

He had, the report says, in 1990 asked China to help his campaign against opium planting. Since then China has spent nearly $ 1.5 million and sent out more than 1,000 agricultural experts to develop alternative livelihoods, such food processing.

But shifting away from opium and going into the market economy is no easy task, the report says. "From time to time we found poppies planted covertly in some remote areas," it quotes one of the region's top officials as saying.

It has also experienced the downside of the market economy. In 2002, farmers lost money when, after harvesting more than 4,500 tonnes of water melons, the Chinese had offered too low prices.

Also four years earlier, Mongla invested $ 3.6 million in the construction of a sugar refinery only to find that there was no market for it over in China.