Coast Guard Region 3 is tasked with managing and protecting the sea from Cu Lao Xanh (Binh Dinh province) to Dinh An (Tra Vinh province) alongside the whole archipelago of Truong Sa and Southern continental shelf of Vietnam. This is a large sea with harsh weather conditions and complex, bustling economic and commercial activities, thus greatly impacting on troop ideology and law enforcement at sea as well. It is worth noting that crimes and violations of law at sea have been increasingly complex; Vietnamese fishing vessels’ violations of other countries’ seas and violations of Vietnamese waters by foreign vessels have not been completely prevented yet. Besides, there are differences in the people’s intellectual standards in the area; the people’s knowledge of law is still limited; fishing vessels are scattered across the sea; there is a lack of support equipment for legal dissemination and education. Against that backdrop, while comprehensively performing its specialised tasks, the Region has attached importance to directing its offices and units, particularly those performing their duties at sea to step up legal dissemination and education in order to achieve a huge positive change in law-abiding awareness of cadres, soldiers, and citizens.

Legal dissemination for fishermen from Binh Thuan province

The Region has promoted the role and responsibility of party committees, party organisations, political agencies, and legal dissemination and education councils towards the work of legal dissemination and education as a fundamental measure. To that end, the Region has focused on introducing resolutions, directives, and conclusions on legal dissemination and education to all-level party committees and party organisations via different forms, such as political education work, conferences, refresher courses for cadres, contests, and task performance realities. In the process, party committees within offices and units have grasped issues on the actual state of regularity building and discipline management among cadres and soldiers as well as fishermen’s law-abiding awareness to release specialised resolutions with proper objectives, targets, guidelines, and solutions. Meanwhile, political agencies and legal dissemination and education councils have given advice on designing and executing plans for coordination with provincial commissions for communication and education and with press agencies both inside and outside the Military to conduct legal dissemination and education for citizens, while helping offices and units to carry out legal dissemination and education for cadres and soldiers in accordance with their functions and tasks, increasing inspections and proposing measures to raise the quality of this work. Offices and units of the Region have strictly implemented plans for legal dissemination and education with creative forms and methods and effectively integrated this work into regulations on providing information about violations of law and discipline, ideological situation, and public opinion as well as orientating troop ideology against complex, sensitive issues and serious violations of discipline. Emulation movements and campaigns have been closely combined with raising troops’ self-discipline and law-abiding awareness. Offices and units of the Region have opportunely commended typical collectives and individuals, while formulating measures to settle their weaknesses. As a result, regularity building and discipline management have been increasingly effective; law-abiding awareness and culture of cadres, soldiers, and citizens within the Region’s area have been unceasingly raised. In many recent years, the Region has recorded no serious violation of discipline; the rate of normal disciplinary violations has been below 0.2%; the people have always conformed to fishing regulations at sea.

Additionally, the Region has directed its offices and units to carry out the work of legal dissemination and education with comprehensive content and diverse forms and methods. Grounded on their functions and tasks, offices and units of the Region have defined and included content of legal dissemination and education in plans in a focalised manner; emphasis has been placed on directives, guiding documents, and specialised topics on regularity building, discipline management, and law enforcement at sea. In addition to in-person legal dissemination and education sessions, offices and units of the Region have produced news and articles on their bulletin boards and internal radio systems, organised law knowledge contests, stringently maintained the Legal Study Day and the Political and Cultural Day at grass-roots level, and adopted effective models, such as “Vietnam Coast Guard legal handbook”, “learning one article of law on a daily basis”, and “legal bookcase”. Offices and units of the Region have also required cadres, party members, and youth union members to write commitments to self-improvement, including their observance of law and discipline; their commitments have been reviewed every 6 months and annually. Moreover, the Region has closely combined legal dissemination and education with combat training, regularity building, and discipline management. As for young cadres, new graduates, and new soldiers, the Region’s affiliates have organised forums and talk shows with topics appropriate to their age range to equip them with knowledge of law and skills in managing their relationships in daily life and work. The Region has also directed its affiliates frequently performing their duties at sea to take advantage of information technology (Zalo and Viber applications) to enable cadres and soldiers to quickly access information about law via videos and images. Consequently, cadres and soldiers across the Region have acquired basic knowledge of law and discipline, showing their “immunity” against social evils, upholding respect for law and a sense of responsibility for maintaining and improving the virtues of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”.

Giving national flags to fishermen of Binh Thuan province after legal dissemination

Under the Project on “promoting the role of the People’s Army in legal dissemination and education, encouraging the people to observe law at grass-roots level in the period of 2021 - 2027” and the Project on disseminating the Law on Vietnam Coast Guard, the Region has directed its offices and units to conduct legal propagation for fishermen via diverse forms and methods. To that end, offices and units of the Region have organised working teams to conduct propagation at harbours and sea. Before and during each fishing trip, the Region has deployed propagation teams to each fishing vessel to deliver law-related leaflets and directly equip fishermen with necessary knowledge of law. A part from propagation, those teams have encouraged fishermen to sign commitments not to violating other countries’ seas; fishermen have also been encouraged to quickly report violations of Vietnamese waters by foreign vessels to competent forces. At the same time, the Region has cooperated with Central and local press agencies (Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Binh Thuan, Ninh Thuan, Khanh Hoa, Phu Yen, Tien Giang, Ben Tre and Tra Vinh provinces and Ho Chi Minh City) in executing projects and plans of propagation relating to seas and islands. Besides, the Region has established propagation teams staffed by cadres with good command of law and foreign languages to approach foreign vessels for the sake of flexible, clever legal propagation. Thanks to this approach, the Region has succeeded in disseminating the fundamentals of the Party’s guidelines and the State’s laws on seas and islands among all people, such as Prime Minister’s Directive 45/CT-TTg dated 13 December 2017 on “several urgent tasks and measures to remove the European Commission’s warning about illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing” and Directive 32-CT/TW dated 10 April 2024 by the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat on “strengthening the Party’s leadership over the fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and over sustainable aquaculture development”. Simultaneously, the Region has availed itself of propagation work to clarify issues on national sovereignty over seas, islands, and continental shelf, particularly maritime boundary delimitation agreements between Vietnam and other regional countries, historical and legal evidence of Vietnam’s sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), the Law of the Sea of Vietnam (2012), the Law on Vietnam Coast Guard (2018), prohibited acts in Vietnamese seas, and instructions on settling a number of situations at sea (methods of report to competent forces about violations of Vietnamese waters committed by foreign military, fishing, research vessels; methods of dealing with incidents at sea). As a result, fishermen’ awareness has been increasingly raised, as evidenced by their strict observance of the Party’s guidelines and the State’s laws and policies. The number of violations of foreign seas among fishermen has been unceasingly reduced, which has contributed to the improved efficiency of fishing and the firm protection of national sovereignty over seas and islands.

In addition to those above-mentioned measures, the Region has directed its affiliates to combine legal dissemination and education with regularity building and discipline management; mass mobilisation work has been stepped up via the Program titled “ Vietnam Coast Guard accompanies fishermen” and military - civilian exchange and twinning projects to raise the people’s law-abiding awareness and encourage fishermen to stand shoulder to shoulder with coast guard cadres and soldiers to firmly protect sacred national sovereignty over seas and islands.

Sr. Col. LE VAN TU

Political Commissar of the Region