The rights of ethnic minorities in Vietnam have always been guaranteed and protected right from the Party’s lines and the State’s laws and policies as well as in practice. However, hostile and reactionary forces have taken full advantage of social platforms to distort the rights of ethnic minorities in our country. Those groundless arguments should be resolutely be neutralised.

Vietnam has 54 fraternal ethnic groups, with ethnic minorities accounting for 14.7% of the whole country’s population; ethnic groups in Vietnam have their own cultural identities which are diverse but uniform and harmonious in unity and share common ancestral origin. Throughout the course of the Vietnamese revolution, our Party and State have paid special attention to ethnic minorities via synchronised legal policies, creating the best condition for their comprehensive development, contributing to maintaining and fostering national great unity for the sake of national development.

Ethnic minorities of Na Hang district, Tuyen Quang province take part in the election of deputies to the 14th National Assembly and all-level people’s councils (photo: baotuyenquang.com.vn)

Nevertheless, hostile and reactionary forces have exploited ethnicity-related issues to sabotage our revolution. Notably, they have focused on distorting the rights of ethnic minorities in Vietnam, with cunning arguments. By stating that the Party and State of Vietnam have unfairly treated ethnic minorities, with scant attention paid to ethnic minorities’ life, leaving them in difficult and impoverished circumstances, the Thuong people’s land is being stolen by the Kinh people, and the latter’s governments are persecuting ethnic minorities, paying no attention to improving ethnic minorities’ health and intellectual standard to “easily rule over the people”, hostile forces seek to incite divisions and undermine national great unity. Those wrong, groundless arguments are aimed at denying the Party’s lines and viewpoints and the State’s laws and policies on guaranteeing and protecting the rights of ethnic minorities in Vietnam. In fact, the Party and State of Vietnam have always attached special importance to ensuring the rights of ethnic minorities, which is clarified via the following.

First, the Party has always been consistent in developing and implementing ethnicity policies. In different revolutionary periods with different revolutionary tasks, the Party’s consistent viewpoints and lines on ethnicity issues, national great unity, ethnicity work, and ethnicity policies “have always held a strategic position in the revolutionary cause”; the Party has always advocated “an ethnicity policy of equity, unity, and mutual support for development”. Documents of the Party’s national congresses have all underlined the principle of unity and equity among ethnic groups and confirmed that unity among ethnic groups holds a strategic position in our country’s revolutionary cause. At the 13^th National Party Congress, our Party continued to “focus on completing and well implementing ethnicity policies in all areas, especially specialised policies to deal with difficulties faced by ethnic minority groups”. Meanwhile, the 13^th Party Central Committee’s Resolution 42-NQ/TW, dated 24 November 2023, on “continuing to renew and improve social welfare policies, meeting the requirements of Fatherland construction and protection in the new period” set the targets of “at least 75% of citizens in remote, isolated, border, sea, island areas, 80% of ethnicity minority and mountainous communes enjoying and taking part in cultural activities, having accessing to national and local broadcast programs”. The 6^th Politburo issued Resolution 22-NQ/TW, dated 27 November 1989, on “several major lines and policies for socio-economic development of mountainous regions”. The 13^th Party Central Committee released Resolution 43-NQ/TW, dated 24 November 2023, on “continuing to promote national great unity tradition and strength, making our country increasingly prosperous and happy”. Resolution 24-NQ/TW, dated 12 March 2003, on “ethnicity work” affirmed that “ethnic groups within the great family of Vietnam are equal, maintaining unity and mutual support for development”. The 12^th Politburo’s Conclusion 65-KL/TW, dated 30 October 2019, on “continuing to execute the 9^th Party Central Committee’s Resolution 24-NQ/TW on ethnicity work in the new situation” had new, breakthrough points for the period of 2021 - 2030. With reference to viewpoints and lines, our Party has always paid special attention to performing ethnicity work and implementing policies on ethnicity and national great unity.

Second, the rights of ethnicity minorities in Vietnam have always been guaranteed by legal basis. According to Article 5 of the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: (1). “The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a unified nation of all ethnicities living together in the country of Vietnam”. (2). “All the ethnicities are equal and unite with, respect and assist one another for mutual development; all acts of discrimination against and division of the ethnicities are prohibited”. (3). “The national language is Vietnamese. Every ethnic group has the right to use its own spoken and written language to preserve its own identity and to promote its fine customs, practices, traditions and culture”. (4). “The State shall implement a policy of comprehensive development and create the conditions for the minority ethnicities to fully utilise their internal strengths and develop together with the country”. Obviously, every Vietnamese citizen’s right to equality before law, regardless of their ethnicity or religion, is stipulated by the Constitution.

Under the Party’s lines and the Constitution, the rights of ethnicity minorities have been mentioned in many different legal documents. According to Article 61 of the Education Law (2019), “The State shall establish boarding general education schools and semi-boarding schools for ethnic minority children and for children of families permanently residing in areas with exceptional socio-economic difficulties”. The rights of ethnic minorities have been specified in the Land Law, with regulations and preferential policies to ensure ethnic minorities’ land use rights, allocate housing and production land to ethnic minorities in difficulty, restrict land transfer for the sake of social welfare and sustainable development, provide support for ethnic minorities in the event of loss or lack of land, and guarantee ethnic minorities’ long-term rights and interests. According to the Land Law of 2024, “Ethnic minorities that are not individuals directly engaged in agricultural production but are subject to land allocation without land levy payment”. At the same time, the State has developed specific regulations on assigning forest and forestry land to communities, including ethnic minority groups. The National Assembly and the Government have released many resolutions, decrees, and circulars on ethnicity work, such as the Government’s Decree 05/2011/NĐ-CP, dated 14 January 2011, on “ethnicity work”, stipulating basic principles for “implementing ethnicity policies on the basis of equality, unity, respect, and mutual support for development, ensuring and realising the policy of comprehensive development, gradually improving ethnic minorities’ material and mental life”, Decision 66/2013/QĐ-TTg, dated 11 November 2013, by the Prime Minister, “stipulating the tuition fee support policy for ethnic minority students at universities”. The National Assembly issued Resolution 88/2019/QH14, dated 18 November 2019, on approving “the master project on socio-economic development of ethnic minority and mountainous regions in the period of 2021 - 2030”, and Resolution 120/2020/QH14, dated 19 June 2020, approving “the investment policy for the National Target Program on socio-economic development of ethnic minority and mountainous regions in the period of 2021 - 2030”. Those are undeniable evidences for Vietnam’s efforts to guarantee ethnic minorities’ rights by its legislation.

Third, achievements in ensuring ethnic minorities’ rights in Vietnam cannot be distorted or denied. According to the report on the 15-year review of the implementation of Resolution 24-NQ/TW, dated 12 March 2003, on “ethnicity work”: as of 2019, the construction and gradual perfection of infrastructures have basically changed the face of ethnic minority regions; 100% of districts have built roads to their central parts; 98.4% of communes have constructed motorways to their central parts; 100% of communes have accessed national electricity grid; 93.9% of households have accessed electricity; 100% of communes have established primary and secondary schools; 99.7% of communes have had nursery schools; 99.3% of communes have established health clinics. Our Party and State have always created favourable conditions for and respected ethnic minorities’ right to freedom of belief. The average rate of poor households across all ethnic minority regions have been reduced by 2% to 3% per annum; that rate in communes of extreme difficulty has been decreased by 3% to 4% per annum. Between 2015 and 2018, 1,052 communes (including 106 communes in extreme difficulty) and 27 districts within ethnic minority regions met new-style rural area standards.

Between 2021 and 2023, the National Target Program made investments in 4,092 infrastructural works for ethnic minority regions, including 1,717 village-level roads, 37 rural bridges, 114 markets, 94 schools, 315 irrigation works, 40 electricity systems, 302 houses of culture, 44 clinics, 34 water supply systems, and 200 infrastructural works of other types. The Program has also provided housing land for 489 households, production land for 641 households, vocational transfer support for 14,119 households, and water supply for 102,989 households, constructing 492 public water supply systems, giving assistance to 445 value chain-based production models, 402 community-based production models, and 249 start-up models, organising vocational training courses for 64,195 citizens, building 8 models for preserving and promoting fine cultural identities of ethnic minorities in line with tourism development. In the period of 2021 - 2025, the Program has been funded with over 137,664 billion VND. Besides, the rate of ethnic minority deputies to the National Assembly has increasingly gone up; that rate in the 15^th National Assembly stands at 17.8%.

Theoretically and practically, the Party’s lines and the State’s policies on guaranteeing and protecting the rights of ethnic minorities in Vietnam have obtained significant, comprehensive achievements in all economic, social, cultural, defence, and security fields as well as in the building of the Party and political system. Ethnic minorities’ material and mental life, particularly in the remote, isolated, difficult areas has considerably improved; the hunger and poverty rates have been sharply reduced. Those achievements act as the most convincing evidence for refuting all distorted and groundless arguments about the rights of ethnic minorities in Vietnam.

Sr. Col. DO XUAN DOAI, PhD

Political Academy, Ministry of National Defence