Hoa Binh is a mountainous province located in the Northwest and the Western gateway of Hanoi Capital City with the rough terrain and a great deal of caves and heights of both offensive and defensive value as an important basis for building combat bases. Moreover, in the province’s area, there are many traffic routes and constructions of utmost importance to the country’s economy, defence and security. Needless to say, Hoa Binh is a major defensive direction of the Military Region 3 and the whole country.

Therefore, grounded on resolutions and directives by the Party, State, Ministry of National Defence (MND) and Military Region 3 on building defensive zones, the provincial armed forces of Hoa Binh have always promoted their core role in making the provincial defensive zone increasingly strong. To do so, the Provincial Military Command (PMC) and its Party Committee have advised the Provincial Party Executive Committee on issuing the Program 19-Ctr/ĐU on implementing the 10^th Politburo’s 28-NQ/TW on “building provinces and municipalities into solid defensive zones in the new situation”, and the Projects on: building the militia and self-defence force, combining defensive zone exercises with socio-economic development and national defence planning, disposition and support in the area between 2015 and 2020 as the basis for all-level party committees and authorities’ leadership, direction and implementation. Yearly, the Provincial Party Committee Standing Board issues a directive on strengthening the Party’s leadership over local defence-military missions and the building of defensive zone, while founding boards to direct committees, departments, and districts to organize the operations related to provincial defensive zone building and exercises.

At present, over 70% of the people in Hoa Binh province are ethnic minorities with unequal intellectual level and economic difficulties. Taking advantage of those, hostile forces have been stepping up propagation and distortions to divide the national great unity block. Thus, all-level party committees and authorities have attached importance to building the politico-spiritual potential. Based on their function and task, the provincial armed forces have actively given advice to and cooperated with departments, sectors and unions in providing defence and security education for all objects and people, particularly the key cadres in the political system, students, ethnic minority people, and locals living in the key defence-security, remote, isolated areas. The all-level Defence and Security Education Councils have been founded and staffed. They have regularly renewed and improved the quality of operation; carried out and included defence and security education and propagation in mass media and local festivals and cultural meetings; encouraged the Special Column entitled All-People National Defence on the Provincial Radio - Television. The provincial armed forces have successfully conducted the work of preparing a contingent of cadres and party members for localities from soldiers and assisted the grass-roots party organizations and mass organizations, particularly in communes in difficulty in enhancing the quality of operation. Up to now, 100% of the province’s communes, wards and townships have had party organizations; 99.95% of villages, hamlets and schools have had party members. Those results have provided an essential basis for improving the leadership and combativeness of grass-roots party organizations.

As “an army ready for work”, the provincial armed forces have well performed the mass mobilization work, helping the people with hunger eradication and poverty reduction as well as natural disaster response and mitigation, stepping up the movements, namely “the Military joins hands in building new-style rural area” and “Building defence-security cultural villages and hamlets”. Besides, the provincial armed forces have effectively implemented the Party’s guidelines and the State’s law and policy on ethnicity and religion, while paying due regard to improving the revolutionary contributors’ life and executing the policies regarding military families. Those activities have contributed to raising the awareness and responsibility of cadres, party members and the people towards executing the Party’s guidelines and the State’s law and policy as well as the local defence-security mission; to strengthening the people’s faith in local party committees and authorities. All military-security-related activities have been closely led and directed by party committees and actively partaken by unions and the people.

Significance has been attached to building economic potential and material resources for the defensive zone. Grasping the Party’s guidelines and the State’s policy, the provincial armed forces have actively advised all-level party committees and authorities on combining socio-economic development with defence and security, ensuring that each economic step would strengthen the defence-security potential. In this regard, the economic development has been considered as the centre while the people’s improved life has been seen as an important factor in the enhanced defence-security and socio-economic development. Under that spirit, the PMC has cooperated with committees, departments and sectors in giving advice to the province on making the master plan for national defence disposition in line with socio-economic development until 2020. It has cooperated with higher echelons in appraising socio-economic development programs/plans/projects so that they would not impact on the planning and building of the military posture in the defensive zone of the province, the Military Region 3 and the country.

In addition, the province has carried out many policies to attract investments in production and business in the area, stepped up the programs for socio-economic, cultural, education and health development, built infrastructure and stabilized production and life of the people in the communes of the CT229 and Da River lake-bed areas, constructed and upgraded district-level general hospitals, commune-level health stations, and military-civilian health stations up to the national standards, repaired and built many key traffic roads for 100% of its communes. As a result, the province’s average economic growth rate has reached 9.2% per year; contribution of industry and construction to its economy has unceasingly increased; urban and rural areas have been developed while the people’s life has increasingly improved.

Another important part of the building of defensive zone is making the local armed forces strong as the core in performing the local military-defence missions. To make the active force revolutionary, regular, seasoned, gradually modern, the PMC and its Party Committee have advised the Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee on leading the work of consolidating the structure of all-level military offices and combat readiness units; planned, trained, appointed and improved the staff capacity and task performance of cadres, particularly ethnic minority cadres. At the same time, the PMC has strictly maintained the order for regularity building, discipline management, training and combat readiness, closely cooperated with the Public Security Force under the Government’s Decree 77/2010/NĐ-CP in grasping the situation, developing and implementing the projects for riot and terrorism prevention and combat as well as those for protecting the hydropower plant and central targets in the area.

The provincial armed forces have also counselled all-level party committees and authorities to build a “strong, extensive” militia and self-defence force with the proper quantity and high quality under the regulations, ensuring that members of this force could take part in production and political security and social order protection in each hamlet, village, office and unit as well as in disaster prevention and mitigation. As for the reserve force, the order for reservist and technical equipment registration and management has been closely, sufficiently maintained; the rate of party members within this force has reached above 10.2% while the quality of this staff has met the task requirements.

In reality, each defensive zone exercise is a comprehensive test on localities’ capacity to mobilize resources in the national defence mission in the event and contributes to raising the awareness of cadres, party members and people from all walks of life as well as the leadership of party committees and the operation and management of authorities at all levels towards the building and operation of the defensive zone. Thus, the PMC has always counselled the province to organize those exercises on an “effective, practical, safe, and economical” basis and combine the exercises with the construction of public works, thereby contributing to realizing the targets and programs for new rural development, being supported by the people and all-level authorities. It is worth noting that in 2018, the province successfully held the provincial defensive zone exercise on a large scale with many reforms in the method and the participation of many components and forces. In this exercise, the province effectively encouraged the mechanism: “leadership from the Party, operation by the authority, counselling from the Military and Public Security offices and committees, departments, sectors and unions, and the armed forces as the core”, which could be seen as the most overwhelming success.

The obtained results and lessons will provide an important precondition for the provincial armed forces of Hoa Binh to continue better promoting their core role in cooperating with all-level party committees and authorities and the people in the area in making the provincial defensive zone increasingly strong and stable, meeting the requirements for the Homeland protection in the new situation.

Sr. Col. Ha Tat Dat, Standing Member of the Provincial Party Committee

Commander of the PMC