In the past 20 years of construction, combat, and development, Coast Guard Drug Prevention and Control Task Force No.1 has always attached great value to effectively studying and following Uncle Ho’s teachings via various measures as an incentive for its brilliant task performance.

Drug Prevention and Control Task Force No.1 (under the Vietnam Coast Guard Command - VCG) is tasked with cracking down on drug trafficking and transport rings and gangs, resolutely preventing the “white death” right at the Fatherland’s Northern sea gateway. This is a specialised task with numerous dangers, difficulties, and challenges as the sea of the Task Force’s responsibility is large, together with increasingly complex developments, cunning, and recklessness of drug crime. Notably, drug crime rings and organisations have recently employed new methods and artifices, applying high technologies to drug trafficking and transport in bulk and on transnational scale. Meanwhile, the Task Force’s limited organisational structure and specialised equipment have yet to keep pace with the tasks of situational grasp, control, investigation, and case cracking as well as the developments of science and technology. Against that backdrop, the Task Force’s Party Committee and Command have comprehensively performed its tasks via synchronous, proper measures, with emphasis placed on stepping up the study and following of Uncle Ho’s teachings to promote synergy and motivate cadres and soldiers to successfully fulfil their assigned missions.

The signing of the Plan on coordination in the fight against drug crime with competent forces of Quang Ninh province

Due to the complexity and danger of the fight against drug crime, cadres and soldiers must have great political steadfastness, courage, and resolve to meet their task requirements. Fully aware of the characteristics of the tasks and imbued with Uncle Ho’s teachings: “politics is the soul, expertise is the body. Expertise without politics is like a body without soul. Politics must come before expertise”, the Task Force’s Party Committee and Command have focused on well conducting political and ideological education work to build strong willpower and determination among troops to undertake and successfully fulfil every assigned task. While drastically taking measures to raise the execution of Directive 2423-CT/QUTW, dated 9 November 2023, by the Central Military Commission on “renewing and improving political education in the new era”, the Task Force’s Party Committee and Command have well carried out the work of task introduction, combining tasks-related education with historical tradition education and law dissemination, selecting proper topics for troops to study. In parallel with education work, the Task Force has enhanced discipline management, well implementing Regulations on Democracy at grass-roots level, proactively grasping ideological developments, opportunely orientating public opinion among its cadres, employees, and soldiers about new, complex, sensitive issues, strictly maintaining regulations on ideological report. Moreover, the Task Force has directed the study and following Uncle Ho’s teachings towards the “four-good, four-no, four-against”¹ movement to prevent and push back signs of degradation in political ideology, morality, and lifestyle as well as manifestations of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation”. Prior to each case, the Task Force’s Party Committee and Command have issued a specialise resolution to exercise their close leadership and direction over each phase and step, while screening political quality to assign tasks to cadres and soldiers. This approach helps ensure troops’ political steadfastness and is crucially necessary for cadres, employees, and soldiers of the Task Force to clearly identify their pride and responsibility in the fight against drug crime, material temptations, and negative impacts from the outside.

As the Task Force both performs military tasks and engages in the fight against crime, its cadres have been recruited from various sources with different specialities. Besides, the fight against drug crime at sea has its particular difficulties and complexity. Imbued with Uncle Ho’s teachings: “cadres in charge of training work must forever study further to undertake their job”, the Task Force has frequently attached great value to raising the quality of military training, retraining, and specialised training for its cadres and soldiers. Under higher echelons’ resolutions, directives, and guidance on combat training, on a yearly basis, the Task Force Party Committee has released a specialised resolution on combat training with specific goals, targets, requirements, and measures relevant to the characteristics of the Task Force and areas of responsibility. Emphasis has been placed on making breakthroughs in “acquiring professional knowledge and skills, raising the quality and effectiveness of situational grasp and the fight against drug crime at sea”. To realise those breakthroughs, the Task Force has directed its offices and units to renew content, forms, and methods of training and increase refresher courses on professional competence and skills for their cadres and soldiers, particularly in basic investigation, undercover operation, information collection, analysis, and verification, and arrest making. In the process, the Task Force has closely combined military training, specialised training, legal education with the sharing of experiences and skills in dealing with high-profile cases and each type of crime. While selecting cadres with great professional competence and hands-on experience as instructors, the Task Force has proactively invited experts from the Public Security Force, the Border Guard Force, and provincial-level courts and procuracies to deliver specialised topics for its troops. Moreover, the Task Force Party Committee has concentrated on selecting and sending its staff members to academies and schools for further education under the assigned targets and to refresher courses held by its higher echelons. Up to now, 100% of officers within the Task Force have held a Bachelor’s Degree, 21% of them have held a master’s degree, and all of them have grasped and effectively, creatively applied legal knowledge to opportunely settle situations during drug prevention and control.

In the areas of its responsibility, there are many estuaries and seaports with a heavy flow of foreign vessels in transit or movements within the Vietnamese inland waters. Hence, the Task Force has thoroughly grasped and followed Uncle Ho’s teachings: “…it is necessary to rely on the people,…”, “if we know how to rely on the people, every work will be successful” in order to effectively handle extremely cunning artifices of drug-related criminals. The Task Force has directed its units to promote coordination with local party committees and authorities in building political bases and a firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds”, carrying out mass mobilisation work, actively conducting law propagation, dissemination, and education among fishermen at sea to raise their awareness of the Law on Drug Prevention and Control, encouraging the people to well execute the movement entitled “people take part in crime prevention, detection, and denunciation”, turning them into the “ears and eyes” of the Task Force in the fight against drug crime. Doing so has laid an important foundation for the Task Force to opportunely adopt specialised measures and develop plans against drug crime.

Furthermore, the Task Force has regularly closely cooperated with drug prevention and control units from the Public Security Force, the Border Guard Force, the Customs, and the Maritime Administration within provinces and municipalities to grasp information about drug crime at sea and form an inter-connected, closed posture between on land and at sea. Thanks to those efforts, the Task Force has cracked down many high-profile cases, significantly contributing to preventing and pushing back drug crime within the Northern sea, maintaining political security, social order and safety, and the people’s peaceful life and happiness. With its outstanding achievements, the Task Force has been honoured with the Second-Class Feat-of-Arms Order by the State President as well as many other noble rewards by the Ministry of National Defence and the VCG Command.

In the upcoming time, drug crime situation will continue to be complex; Vietnamese waters will still be one of the epicentres of operations of large-scale, transnational drug rings. Fully aware of its assigned tasks and bringing into play its recorded results, Drug Prevention and Control Task Force No.1 will continue to step up the study and following of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle as an incentive for improving its task performance to deserve to be a vanguard force in preventing threats from drug and contribute to bringing a peaceful life to the people.

Col. PHAM VAN DONG

Commander of the Task Force 

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1. Four-good: good political and ideological qualities; good professional expertise; good internal and civilian - military unity; good regularity building and discipline management. Four-no: no gambling, betting, or borrowing of money without ability to repay; no illegal trafficking, possession, transport, or use of drug; no use of alcohol in prohibited places and periods of time; no smoking in workplace and public. Four-against: against intervention; against aid and abet; against cover for crime; against turning a blind eye to crime.