A joint patrol to protect the sea border sovereignty and security

Binh Thuan province is located in the Southern Central Coast. With a coastline of 192km, a sea of 52,000km², and a rich resource of seafood, it is the third largest fishing ground of Vietnam. Its sea border areas include 36 communes, wards and townships under 7 districts, towns and cities. The island district of Phu Quy is 56 nautical miles far away from the mainland, holding a strategic position in defence, security and economic terms, being the closest rear base of Truong Sa archipelago. The island of Hon Hai is one of the eleven landmarks to measure the breadth of Vietnam’s territorial waters. Those characteristics reveal that the province has many advantages to develop the economy comprehensively, especially marine economy, but it is the area inflicted by hostile forces’ acts of sabotage, smuggling, illegal maritime immigration, conflicts over the fishing grounds, and illegal exploration and exploitation of natural resources.

Over the past years, being in charge of managing and protecting the sea border sovereignty and security, the Provincial Border Guard (PBG) has grasped the task and the situation in the area, and actively given sound advice to the Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee on taking measures to manage and protect the sea border sovereignty and security. It has closely cooperated with relevant forces in performing the border defence tasks comprehensively. As a result, the awareness and responsibility of border defence cadres and troops, local party committees and authorities and people have been raised considerably. The PBG’s participation in socio-economic development, hunger alleviation and poverty reduction, natural disaster prevention and control, and search and rescue has had significant results. Notably, it has enhanced the fight against hostile sabotage and crime of all types, thereby greatly contributing to maintaining political security and social order, safeguarding the sea border sovereignty, creating a favourable condition for the province’s socio-economic development in general, the rapid, sustainable marine economy in particular. To obtain those achievements, the PBG has adopted the following measures.

First, focusing on education and propagation to raise the PBG staff and people’s awareness and responsibility towards the task of managing and protecting the sea border sovereignty and security. This is the basis for achieving a sense of unity in awareness and action of the province’s whole political system, armed forces and people towards this task. To do that, the PBG’s Party Committee and Command have advised the Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee on directing offices, units, and localities to step up the work of education and propagation to make all people and forces, particularly those in coastal areas fully understand the significance and necessity of protecting the sea border sovereignty and security. On such a basis, the PBG has heightened their responsibility for performing the tasks, persuading the people to both exploit seafood and take part in managing and protecting the areas.

The focuses of education and propagation have been placed on the area’s particularities, the Party’s guidelines on combining marine economy development with defence-security and marine all-people national defence posture building, the directions and measures to deal with the issues related to sea border sovereignty and security, the Law of the Sea of Vietnam, the National Border Law, local regulations, troops and fishermen’s rights, obligations and responsibilities towards the management and protection of the assigned border sovereignty and security as well as hostile plots and artifices in the sea border areas.

In the process, all-level party committees and commands have renewed the content and program, diversified format and method of propagation. As for troops, the PBG has closely combined basic political education with specialized education, training courses, and cultural, artistic activities. As for coastal people, the PBG has promoted the role of teams and groups of mass mobilization, particularly local cadres and troops as the core in the work of propagation. It has conducted the work of propagation in cultural, community houses and even via direct meetings with fishermen. At the same time, it has counselled the opening of the columns of “seas and islands of the Homeland” and “for the sea border sovereignty and security” on the province’s Newspaper and Radio-Television as well as the organization of forums, dialogues and knowledge contests related to national border and laws on sea border and border gates. Thanks to the work of propagation, cadres, party members and people’s awareness and responsibility towards the management and protection of sea border sovereignty and security have been considerably raised; a sense of vigilance against plots and acts of sabotage by the hostile forces has been maintained.

Second, raising the quality of measures for the border defence work. The province’s sea border areas have had complex developments as the hostile forces have taken advantage of the issues related to environmental pollution, ethnicity, religion to sabotage and destabilize security and order. Thus, in addition to the work of propagation and mass mobilization, the BFG Command has concentrated on improving the quality of patrol, reconnaissance and crime prevention and control; grasping and forecasting the situation, unmasking hostile plots and operations to adopt preventive measures; investing in facilities and technical means to fulfil the tasks. Moreover, the PBG has enhanced the work of border recce, stayed close to the area and the people, improved the capability in making forecasts, preparing projects for settling the situations, avoiding falling into passivity. At the same time, it has regularly renewed and raised the efficiency of the State management of border inspection and control, particularly at sea ports, sea port gates; cooperated with other forces in organizing sea patrol and control operations to opportunely detect, drive away, capture and handle foreign vessels violating our waters; established and maintained the system of communications in the locals’ fishing vessels to grasp the situation at sea and inform fishermen of bad weather and natural disasters. Furthermore, the PBG has grasped and strictly implemented the Party’s guidelines, the State’s policy, and the province’s border regulations in a clever, flexible manner in order to “avoid falling into the enemy’s trap” and maintain the political security in the areas.

Also, the PBG has well carried out the work of diplomacy, cooperated with the International Organization for Migration in Vietnam in adopting measures to prevent, fight against and completely end illegal migration by vessels in the key areas. As a result, since 2009, the PBG has handled 614 cases of narcotic possession and trade and captured 1,405 relevant people, cooperated with other forces in capturing and handling 49 foreign vessels violating our territorial waters and dealing with 94 fishing vessels of the provincial people violating foreign waters as well as many other cases of smuggling, trade fraud, and illegal explosive trade, possession and delivery.

Third, stepping up cooperation with other forces in managing and protecting the sea border sovereignty and security. Grasping the assigned task and the area’s characteristics, the PBG Command has taken measures to enhance cooperation with relevant forces in order to create and encourage the synergy to manage and protect the province’s sea border sovereignty and security. As the core in coordination, the PBG Command has closely cooperated with the province’s Military and Public Security forces as well as localities in formulating plans, projects, procedures and methods to deal with specific situations during the course of performing the task. Emphasis has been placed on grasping the regulations on coordination, assigning function, task, and authority, clarifying the sequence and specific action of each force in each situation in order to achieve a sense of consensus and create a favourable condition for the PBG’s operation. At the same time, the PBG has organized training and exercises under the projects of border defence operations in line with mobilizing locals and civilian vessels and vehicles to take part in protecting the sovereignty and sovereign right in the seas and on the islands as well as under the projects for riot prevention and control in order to effectively deal with the hostile forces’ plots and artifices.

In addition, the PBG has proactively counselled party committees and authorities to develop plans/programs and signed the agreement with local sectors and organizations on executing the Prime Minister’s Directive 01/CT-TTg, dated January 9^th 2015 on organizing the movement of all people participating in protecting national border sovereignty and security in the new situation. It has strictly maintained the order for meetings in the areas at all levels, actively taken part in building the grass-roots political system and facilitating the socio-economic and cultural development in line with the task of protecting the sea border sovereignty and security. Up to now, the PBG has taken part in establishing and training 16 coastal militia and self-defence platoons in fishery industry unions as well as constructing and handing over 17 Great Unity Houses, 17 Charity Houses, 21 Comradeship Houses, etc.

Those activities have helped the PBG cement the military-civilian solidarity and the all-people border defence movement, promote the combined strength of all forces, and fight to foil all plots and acts of sabotage by the hostile forces. As a result, the province’s sea border sovereignty and security have been closely managed and firmly protected, which has contributed to maintaining political security and social order as well as facilitating Binh Thuan’s fulfilment of the targets of socio-economic development.

Sr. Col. Nguyen Ngoc Hao, Standing Member of the Provincial Party Committee

Commander of the PBG