II. The Border Guard Force (BGF) actively participates in building “solid milestones in the people’s hearts and minds”

Building and safeguarding the national border is a task of paramount importance to the entire political system and the Vietnamese people with the BGF playing a core role and residents in border areas working as regular participants. Being fully aware of their functions, duties and stationed localities, the BGF in the Central Highlands has brought into full play salient characteristics of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” and sense of responsibility as well as fostered their close-knit relations with local ethnic minorities. The BGF frequently “stays close to the locals, villages and hamlets and local administrations” in the interest of “solid milestones in the people’s hearts and minds” in the Central Highlands.

To this end, actively participating in strengthening the political system at grassroots level is at the top of the BGF’s agenda. This is now a matter of urgency. It is clear from reality that only when the political system, particularly at grassroots level, is pure and strong, is the leadership capacity expanded, thereby building up the people’s trust in the Party and the regime, making them totally devoted to socio-economic and cultural development as well as the tasks of defense, security and Homeland protection. Therefore, the BGF has closely cooperated with relevant agencies in providing valuable advice for local administrations on concretizing the Party’s guidelines and the State’s policies to match localities’ circumstances. The BGF has sent cadres and officers to border communes where local administrations at grassroots level remain ineffective. Those cadres and officers possess true political zeal, great virtue, a high level of professional competence, deep knowledge of local customs and great personal charisma. They are tasked with closely following their stationed localities in order to provide practical advice for and to join local administrations in enhancing the effectiveness of the socio-political system, particularly Party organizations and administrations at grassroots level. In the first place, it is necessary to develop cadres and Party members’ professional competence, particularly key cadres at grassroots level, as well as to enhance the effectiveness of Party cells and administrations in villages and hamlets. Emphasis should be placed on the work of Party building; the principle of democratic centralism, criticism and self-criticism; how Party organizations draft, issue and implement resolutions; inspection, supervision and the initiation of new Party members; manpower planning at grassroots level; working regulations earmarked for Party committees, people’s committees and mass organizations; documents concerning national defense and security at grassroots level. With a deep sense of responsibility, the BGF in the Central Highlands has sent 198 Party members to local Party cells’ meetings and 37 officers to border communes with 32 of them appointed deputy secretaries of communes’ Party committees and 5 of them appointed to communes’ Party committees and administrations; has assisted localities to initiate 197 individuals into the Party and to make 129 hamlets and villages  no longer devoid of Party members and Party organizations while helping to consolidate 181 Party cells and 131 socio-political organizations.

The BGF’s units have also assisted local Party committees and administrations in formulating and implementing plans for the protection of internal politics in order to prevent hostile forces’ bribery activities; in investigating the locals’ complicated relations with foreigners in order to select cadres; in holding 217 professional training workshops involving nearly 18,000 cadres from provincially-run departments, districts, communes, villages and hamlets;  in providing mobile legal aid 950 times, as well as in establishing 27 legal consultancy teams and 31 legal bookcases in border communes, and  372 mediation teams in villages and hamlets. Those have contributed to enhancing Party committees and administrations’ leadership and management capacities at grassroots level, particularly in settling disagreements amongst the people and fostering a sense of community and neighborliness, in minimizing complaints and denunciations involving a lot of people or going directly to the central level without going through the lower levels, as well as in curtailing activities aimed at disrupting security and public order. While the Central Highlands were notorious for free migration, illegal border crossings, unlawful religious activities and disrupted public order and social safety, particularly in the 2001-2004 period, the region has witnessed downward trends in those phenomena in recent years, thereby strengthening political security and restoring public order in border areas. For example, the BGF in Kon Tum province has participated in strengthened political security and preserved public order in villages and hamlets; the BGF in Gia Lai province has provided practical advice on improving the performance of local Party organizations and mass organizations; the BGF in Dak Nong province has recommended guidelines on initiating ethnic minorities into the Party. Obviously, sending BGF’s cadres and officers to border communes and Party cells’ meetings in villages and hamlets has born fruit and greatly contributed to making border areas safe.

In order to build “solid milestones in the people’s hearts and minds”, the BGF in the Central Highlands has paid special attention to encouraging the people to successfully implement the Party’s guidelines and viewpoints, the State’s policies and laws and localities’ political tasks while promoting their roles in safeguarding territorial sovereignty and border security. Realities of Homeland construction and defense over the past years have revealed that widespread consensus among the people over awareness, ideology and actions is a decisive factor in the quality of all-people national defense associated with the people’s security and all-people border guard. As a result, the BGF has closely cooperated with relevant agencies in thoroughly grasping local situations while properly advising local Party committees and administrations on contents and formats of education that match the masses’ knowledge levels, particularly in terms of political, ideological, defense and security education. In a comprehensive, synchronous and practical manner, education has focused on central tenets of Marxist-Leninist doctrine, Ho Chi Minh Thought, the Party’s guidelines and viewpoints and the State’s policies and laws regarding  socio-economic development, ethnic minorities, religion, great national unity and national defense as enshrined in resolutions and directives, especially the Resolution of the 12^th National Party Congress, the Strategy for Homeland protection in the new situation, and the Law on national borders. Doing so has helped to heighten awareness, to kindle patriotism and national pride and self-respect as well as to promote a sense of responsibility among the people of the Central Highlands as regards the management and protection of territorial sovereignty and border security.

The Border Guard of Kon Tum province cooperates with the militia force in patrolling the border lines and markers

The Central  Highlands’ BGF has attached much importance to the implementation of the Prime Minister’s Directive 01/CT-TTg “on launching mass movements for the protection of territorial sovereignty and border security”, as evidenced by such movements as “village patriarchs work as role models”, “the masses participate in self-management of borderlines, border markers and public order in villages and hamlets”, “peace in parishes”, “all the people join hands in building cultural life”, or by the compilation of slogans and leaflets in national language and ethnic minorities’ languages. Furthermore, the BGF has closely cooperated with local administrations in encouraging local households and collectives to participate in effectively managing and safeguarding  borderlines and border markers as well as to strictly observe border regulations and villages/hamlets’ regulations on  security and public order. Joining hands with the BGF in the protection of borderlines, border markers and public order has been stipulated in multiple villages and hamlets’ regulations. The thorough grasp of stationed localities, close-knit relations with local administrations and the locals and promotion of villages patriarchs’ roles have enabled the BGF in the Central Highlands to heighten awareness of and a sense of responsibility for  the protection of borderlines, border markers and territorial sovereignty among the masses. Those have helped to foster local ethnic minorities’ trust in the BGF – Uncle Ho’s soldiers, the Party’s leadership and the management by the State and administrations at grassroots level, thereby making them determined to neutralize hostile forces’ “peaceful evolution” strategy and plots to instigate “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” and depraved customs as well as to actively participate in building new cultural life.

The BGF in the Central Highlands has considered the building of “solid milestones in the people’s hearts and minds” primarily reliant on the quality of their advice to local Party committees and administrations on accelerated socio-economic development, strengthened national defense and  security,  hunger eradication and poverty reduction, and ethnic minorities’ improved living standards. Under the motto “border guard posts as home, border areas as homeland, ethnic minorities as brothers and sisters”, cadres and soldiers from the BGF’s units have devoted themselves singled-mindedly to helping local ethnic minorities with economic development, hunger eradication and poverty reduction, and improved living standards. The provincial Border Guard Commands have closely cooperated with local agencies in properly advising local Party committees and administrations on plans for socio-economic development aimed at gradually lifting ethnic minorities in border communes out of poverty and backwardness and improving their material and spiritual lives. Such programmes and movements as “Teachers with green rank badges, “Doctors with green rank badges” “Homes for the poor in border and island areas”,  “Breeding cows for the poor in border areas”, “Supporting children’s schooling”, have step by step helped the people of the Central Highlands to improve their intellectual and living standards. Education popularization classes run by the BGF have made thousands of ethnic minorities literate, many of whom have even striven to further their education and become core cadres in their localities. Border guard posts in the Central Highlands have sponsored 216 students with special difficulties in border areas through education, 22 of whom take Lao and Cambodian nationalities. In compliance with the Border Guard Command’s direction, border guard units in the Central Highlands have concentrated on helping localities with structural transformations in agricultural crops and livestock, with development of sectors that suit their advantages in terms of land and human resources and with population redistribution in border areas.

Moreover, border guard units have closely cooperated with local agencies in rallying approximately VND 30 bn from enterprises for 512 Gratitude houses and Solidarity houses, 36 public works, rural roads, electric power transmission lines, and education and health establishments. In 2017 alone, the Central Highlands’ BGF in cooperation with benefactors presented the poor in border areas with nearly VND 1bn’s worth of 2,250 gifts. Thanks to border guard units’ contributions, a large number of border communes in the Central Highlands have met criteria for “new-style rural areas”. Those deeds have contributed to polishing the image of Uncle Ho’s soldiers for ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands.

The above-mentioned achievements recorded by the Central Highlands’ BGF have greatly contributed to fostering ethnic minorities’ trust in the Party, the regime and local administrations and to making them cling on to their villages, hamlets and border areas. It is the BGF that is at the core of building “solid milestones in the people’s hearts and minds” and firmly safeguarding territorial sovereignty and border security in the thickly forested Central Highlands. (To be continued)

Dinh Khang, Ho Dang & Dang Bay