Political riots and secession are premise for hostile forces to conduct various forms of engagement and unconventional warfare. Due to its important social characteristics and strategic location, the Central Highlands has always been the focal area for hostile forces to implement their plots. Therefore, actively fighting against political riots and secession in the Central Highlands is a regular and essential strategic task.

The Central Highlands, aka the “roof of Indochina”, is a place with an important strategic position in terms of socio-economics, national defence, security, and foreign affairs,... of the central region and the whole country, hence a key area of sabotage of hostile forces. Carrying out their plots to take control of this strategic area, hostile forces have promoted the strategy of “peaceful evolution” to incite mass demonstrations, cause political riots, create pretexts for military involvement and intervention for overthrowing local authorities, establishing “free” and “autonomous” regions, and setting up opponent and reactionary authorities.

Recently, in the Central Highlands, although having been repelled, with the support of hostile forces and Vietnamese exile organisations, the reactionary forces still found ways to hide themselves in the mountainous, border, and ethnic minority areas to nurture their dream of secession and autonomy to establish the “Independent Dega State”. Through religion-disguised reactionary elements and kinship and clan relationships, disgruntled objects and political opportunists have colluded to form political associations and groups, notably the “Bauxite Ore” group and the “civil society” forum. On this ground, they have promoted the formation of “secret armed forces” in the border areas. The opposing forces have also thoroughly taken advantage of the socio-economic difficulties, shortcomings, and limitations of the local Party committees and authorities to propagate, distort, entice, and incite people to complain, protest, and gradually develop into political riots and secession. Through spontaneous activities in the name of “protecting” the environment, fighting corruption, fighting for democracy, human rights, people's livelihood, etc., they have conspired to develop into organised protest and sabotage movements and turn internal conflicts into external ones for intervening, engaging, and overthrowing local authorities. Therefore, it is difficult to detect and handle the plots of political riots and secession as it is not easy to distinguish and differentiate the manipulated people from the hidden reactionary forces. Meanwhile, the grassroots political system, cadres, Party members, civil servants, and public employees in some localities are still insufficient in both quantity and quality. The grasping of situations and information, detection of plots and tricks, and handling capacity related to political riots and secession in some areas are still inadequate. In that context, to actively prevent and fight against political riots and secession in the Central Highlands, it is necessary to implement synchronous solutions, especially the following contents.

Firstly, focusing on building a comprehensively strong political system. This is the most important solution to strengthen the belief of ethnic minorities in the Party and State, particularly in the Party committees and local authorities. Therefore, first of all, it is necessary to focus on renovating the Party's leadership methods and improving the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of management and administration of local authorities to meet the requirements and tasks of socio-economic development and national defence and security reinforcement in the localities; continue to fulfill the mechanism of “the Party’ leadership, the State’s management, and the people’s mastership”; and renew the leadership methods of Party organisations at all levels, especially at the provincial and grassroots ones. To make it effective, Party committees and organisations at all levels need to promote the renovation of stages and steps in the formulation and implementation of resolutions with attention paid to solving inadequacies, limitations, and pressing concerns of the people; regularly consolidate the organisation and improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of management and administration of the People's Councils and People's Committees at all levels towards positiveness, proactiveness, and resoluteness in implementation; promote the specific and clear decentralisation; strengthen inspection, urging, supplementation, and adjustment to create positive changes in each locality and each sector; develop regulations on close cooperation among authorities at all levels and socio-political organisations in socio-economic management and performance of defence and security tasks as well as in citizen reception, complaint and denunciation handling; effectively prevent and repel the deterioration of political thoughts, ethics, and lifestyle, bureaucracy, corruption, and wastefulness; strengthen the management and execution of socio-economic programs and projects, focusing on the goals of hunger eradication, poverty alleviation, illiteracy eradication, and “electricity, roads, schools, and stations”, to ensure social security, production land, residential land, and employment; pay attention to building a new cultural life through preserving and promoting the quintessence of traditional culture, and gradually build new values ​​of culture and arts, form a civilised life, and contribute to improving the material and spiritual life of ethnic minorities.

Secondly, raising awareness and sense of responsibility for cadres, armed forces, and people about the prevention and control of political riots and secession in the localities. First of all, it is necessary to make the local Party committees, authorities, mass organisations, armed forces stationed in the areas, and local people fully understand the plots and tricks of the hostile forces, especially new ones, and objectives, methods of conduct, and situations where political riots and secession may occur in the area. Concurrently, it is required to firmly grasp the goals, mottos, and viewpoints; proactively prevent, control, and repel the risks of political riots and secession from afar; and promote the synergy of the entire political system, the entire people, and the armed forces in performing this important task. To be effective, propaganda and education must be conducted regularly and continuously with focuses and methods suitable to each object, particularly innovation and diversification of forms, etc. Doing this will help create a strong change in awareness and sense of responsibility of cadres, Party members, and armed forces and high unity among the whole people on the prevention and control of political riots and secession in the localities.

Thirdly, maintaining political and social stability, firmly consolidating the ideological battleground, and building a firm “people's heart-and-mind posture”. This is a decisive issue in the prevention and control of political riots and secession across the country in general and in the Central Highlands in particular. Therefore, organisations within the political system and local armed forces need to strengthen the State management and well implement policies on ethnicity and religion; pay attention to the mass mobilisation for religious followers and dignitaries to prevent reactionary objects from taking advantage and manipulating; continue to do well the work of sedentary cultivation and settlement and economic development in association with the implementation of social security policies to improve and stabilise the lives of ethnic minorities, especially those in remote and border areas to limit and curb free immigration; strengthen measures to prevent, control, and effectively repel plots and tricks to connect, infiltrate, manipulate, and sabotage of hostile and reactionary forces; timely detect and prevent actions to build bases and forces, organise training in border areas, and send people to infiltrate inland to prepare for political riots and secession; promote the struggle in the ideological and cultural fields, protect the ideological foundation of the Party and the culture of the ethnic groups in the Centre and Central Highlands; and through the practice of preserving and promoting the ideological, traditional, and cultural values ​​of ethnic minorities; criticise and refute false information and misrepresentations over the Party's guidelines and policies and laws of the State, distortion of history, division of the great unity bloc of nations and religions, and separation of the people from the Party, State, and the armed forces, thereby, strengthening the people's trust in the local Party committees and authorities; building a firm “people's heart-and-mind posture”, especially in key and grassroots areas; and promptly detecting potential internal instability factors, in order to have solutions to properly handle arising problems, especially ethnic and religious issues. The Party committees and authorities at all levels must closely monitor to detect, differentiate, isolate, and handle resolutely and lawfully against the leading, core, and stubborn objects and ethnic and religious disguises; combine education and conversion with legal, administrative, and economic measures in solving the flashpoints; and promote mass mobilisation, bring into play the role of dignitaries, intellectuals, religious officials, and reputable people among ethnic minority people in participating in propagandising and disseminating policies and laws, criticising disguised organisations and objects, and mobilising local people not to follow distorting and reactionary claims.

Finally, building an all-people defence posture in association with the people’s security posture, especially those in key areas to create a solid posture and synergy in the prevention and control of political riots and secession. The prevention and control of political riots and secession, to achieve a solid effect, must be resolved in the overall relationship between socio-economic development and defence and security enhancement and association of all-people defence posture with the people's security posture. Therefore, the close coordination between the Army and the Public Security under Decree No.03/2019/NĐ-CP issued on September 5th, 2019 by the Government should be promoted, especially in the organisation and arrangement of specialised and core forces in protecting defence and security works, key targets, important locations, and main traffic axes. At the same time, importance should be attached to improving the efficiency of coordination in grasping the situation, analysing, and forecasting, especially grasping the situation from afar, from outside, and at the grassroots, to jointly assess and forecast the possibility, time, and location of riots, identify key target areas of protection, combat, struggle, and advise and propose to the Party committees and authorities plans and measures to handle complex issues, “flashpoints”, rioting incidents, and decide to use armed forces in handling situations appropriately and effectively.

Synchronously implementing the above solutions not only ensures national defence and security and maintains political stability but also timely detects risks early and from afar to proactively handle all situations of political riots and separatism. This is an important factor and a foundation for the comprehensive and sustainable development of the Central Highlands.

Major General VO VAN HUNG, Political Chief of Military Region 5