Located in Southern Central Highlands near Indochina’s T-Junction, sharing a 141 kilometre border with Cambodia, Dak Nong province holds a position of strategic importance in socio-economic, defence-security, and diplomatic terms to Central Highlands, Military Region 5, and the whole country. Over the years, thanks to concern of the Party, the State, ministries, and central sectors as well as efforts made by the province’s Party Organisation, authorities, armed forces, and citizens, Dak Nong has obtained considerable socio-economic achievements, its defence and security have been consolidated, its inland security, rural security, and social order and safety have been basically stable, and its ethnic groups’ mental and material life has been unceasingly improved. However, Dak Nong is still a poor province, with a high rate of poverty. Hostile forces have always sought ways of destabilising the province. More dangerously, they have provoked the re-demarcating of the border between Vietnam and Cambodia and incited people to illegally cross the border. Besides, free immigration, cross-border smuggling, and transnational crimes have been still complicated. Visits across the border paid by M’Nong people to their relatives in both Dak Nong and Cambodia have been rather popular. Disputes over forest land for farming have led to complex collective complaints and many hot spots and negatively impacted on the performance of military-defence work, local socio-economic development, and discipline management, particularly in border areas. Against that backdrop, the Provincial Military Party Committee (PMPC) and the Provincial Military Command (PMC) have drastically, synchronously implemented measures to carry out all pieces of work and build “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong offices and units capable of fulfilling all assigned tasks. In this regard, legal propagation, dissemination, and education have been seen as a fundamental solution to raise cadres, soldiers, and citizens’ law-abiding awareness and responsibility.

First of all, the PMPC and the PMC have strengthened leadership and direction of all-level party committees and commands and promoted their roles in legal propagation, dissemination, and education. This measure is of utmost importance and acts as a principle for the process of legal propagation, dissemination, and education. Grasping their higher echelons’ resolutions and directives on legal propagation, dissemination, and education and guiding documents of the Provincial Coordinating Council for Legal Dissemination and Education, the PMPC has developed a specialised Resolution on legal education, while the PMC has promulgated directives and formulated plans/projects for the implementation process. The PMPC has required all-level party committees to concretise and make the contents of the specialised Resolution relevant to their offices and units’ particularities; at the same time, the PMC has asked all-level commands to develop action plans/programmes in a synchronous, unified, focalised, practical manner so as to make a positive change in cadres and soldiers’ observance of the State’s law and the Military’s discipline. In addition, all-level party committees and commands have given advice to all-level party committees and authorities and closely cooperated with provincial departments, committees, sectors, Fatherland Fronts, and unions in conducting the work of legal propagation, dissemination, and education for cadres, party members, and citizens and raising their legal knowledge, building safe areas, consolidating national great unity block, and implementing the Party’s guidelines, the State’s laws and policies, and local regulations.

Second, consolidate all-level Coordinating Councils for Legal Dissemination and Education (hereafter the Councils for short) and effectively maintain their operation. As this measure is of importance to raising the effectiveness of legal propagation, dissemination, and education in each office and unit, the PMPC and the PMC have placed special emphasis on consolidating the Councils both quantitatively and qualitatively. The PMPC and the PMC have directed district-level military commands and Infantry Regiment 994 to establish Law Instructor Teams, with significance attached to selecting cadres with political zeal, pure morality, comprehensive knowledge, and good experience as members of the Councils and Law Instructor Teams. In the process, the PMC has required offices and units to well perform their function as standing bodies of the Councils in order to improve the quality of legal propagation, dissemination, and education within the provincial armed forces. At the same time, due attention has been paid to giving instructions to offices and units on organising refresher courses concerning legal propagation, dissemination, and education for cadres and law instructors at all levels so that they could raise the quality of studying directives, resolutions, laws, decrees, circulars, and legal education topics. Great value has been attached to proactively reviewing, supplementing, and perfecting the Councils’ working regulations and plans, and organising conferences to draw lessons and assess the Councils’ task performance in an objective, practical fashion.

Third, properly identify and renew contents, forms, and methods of legal propagation, dissemination, and education. Based on plans and documents for legal dissemination and education, offices and units have prepared contents of dissemination and education relevant to their particularities and their troops’ educational background and task. In this regard, emphasis has been placed on disseminating the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the National Defence Law, the Law on the Militia and Self-Defence Force, the Law on the Reserve Force, the Military Service Law, the Vietnam Border Guard Law, the Residence Law, the National Assembly’s Resolution on participation in the United Nations peacekeeping forces, the National Assembly’s Resolution on piloting a number of policies to remove problems in the management and use of land for national defence and security purpose in combination with production and economic development as well as regulations on information safety and cyber security. Law instructors at all levels have flexibly employed forms and methods of education, while continuing to maintain and encourage models, such as “troop psychological and legal consultancy team,” “learn one article of law on a weekly basis,” and “legal study day.” Legal propagation, dissemination, and education have been included in political education and military training. Offices and units have actively applied information technology to legal dissemination and education to attract attention of troops.

Fourth, closely combine legal propagation, dissemination, and education with discipline management and military standard order building to contribute to building comprehensively strong offices and units and safe areas. As Dak Nong is a large province with many forces working in the border areas, the PMC has asked its units to intensify measures to manage troops, closely maintain regulations on study and work, and promote military standard order building and discipline management. Due attention has been paid to ensuring troops’ military etiquette. Cadres and soldiers have been required to work according to their responsibilities and act in conformity with military discipline to build regular, exemplary offices and units. Consideration has been given to encouraging the role of cadres at all levels in managing troops, particularly on national holidays and in days off and rest hours. Offices and units have grasped their cadres and soldiers’ ideological developments and observance of discipline to opportunely handle offences at grass-roots level, minimise normal violations, and avoid serious ones. They have also strictly implemented Regulations on Democracy at Grass-Roots Level so that cadres and soldiers could express their opinions and aspirations, while closely collaborating with families and localities in managing troops and bringing into play a sense of internal unity and the close-knit bond between the Military and the people. Besides, the PMPC and the PMC have cooperated with relevant forces and citizens in ensuring political security and social order and safety, particularly in the border areas and the areas mainly inhabited by ethnic minority groups. Doing so has enabled the PMPC and the PMC to opportunely detect and completely handle incidents relating to the provincial armed forces, achieve a consensus amongst their offices and units, and build safe areas.

Thanks to those above-mentioned measures, the quality of military standard order building and discipline management within the provincial armed forces of Dak Nong has been considerably improved. Violations of discipline have all been handled in a public, transparent, and highly educative way. That has provided an important foundation for the PMPC and the PMC to continue exercising their leadership and direction over the building of strong provincial armed forces and “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong offices and units capable of successfully fulfilling all assigned missions.

Sr. Col. DINH HONG TIENG, Commander of the PMC