With all patriotism, comradeship, and affection for compatriots, generations of cadres, soldiers, workers, and defence employees of the Corps 15 have always united in boosting socio-economic development, consolidating defence and security, and building a firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds” in the strategic area of Central Highlands.

The Corps 15 is tasked with combining defence consolidation with economic development in the strategic area of Central Highlands - a land of revolutionary tradition suffering heavy losses from our resistance wars. It should be noted that the hostile forces and Fulro exiles are taking advantage of issues on ethnicity, religion, democracy, and human rights to distort the Party’s guidelines and the State’s law and undermine the national great unity block. They are seeking every way to penetrate into the Central Highlands, incite separatism, and encourage a section of ethnic minority people to join their fight against our authorities or cross the border illegally, with a view to destabilising political security and social order and safety. With the political resolve, grasping the particularities of the area and population, the Corps’ Party Committee and Command have focused on facilitating socio-economic development, strengthening defence and security, and building a firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds” via various practical, specific measures and deeds.

First of all, great value has been attached to conducting propagation to raise the ethnic minority people’s awareness of the Homeland construction and protection. As it is stationed and performing its task in 271 remote, isolated, border hamlets and villages mainly inhabited by ethnic minority people, the Corps is fully aware that the first job is to educate locals to change the method of production, gradually remove depraved customs, and make the area prosperous and strong in terms of defence and security. To that end, the Corps has directed its offices and units to cooperate with local party committees and authorities in disseminating the Party’s guidelines and the State’s law and policy, especially on socio-economic development, ethnicity, and religion as well as unmasking the hostile forces’ “peaceful evolution” strategy and their sabotage schemes against our country’s revolution.

Also, the Corps has required its cadres, workers, and defence employees to research the people’s customs and aspirations so as to identify the methods of propagation properly under the motto of “listening to the people, speaking with the people understandably, and earning the people’s trust.” At the same time, importance has been attached to building and cultivating ethnic minority cadres, village patriarchs, and hamlet heads as the bridge for encouraging the people to follow the Party’s guidelines and the State’s law and fulfil citizens’ responsibilities and obligations in the Homeland construction and protection. Thanks to the work of propagation, the Corps has succeeded in building and cementing the Central Highlands ethnic minority people’s faith in the Party, the State, and the Military and increasing their vigilance against the hostile forces’ plots and artifices. More importantly, they have neither followed the Fulro organisation or Dega Protestantism, nor joined demonstrations or riots. They have also actively taken part in maintaining political security and social order and safety.

Second, the Corps has actively participated in socio-economic development, hunger eradication, poverty reduction, and new-style countryside building. Advocating that “helping the people is to help ourselves,” the Corps’ Party Committee has stepped up cooperation with local party committees and authorities in arranging and stabilising residential areas, providing assistance for locals to both “develop production and attract labour on the spot,” encouraging the people and households to set up business and production in the border, implementing policies to recruit ethnic minority workers to production teams, and giving technical instructions on animal/crop husbandry and household economy development to increase the people’s income and stabilise their life. Since its inception in the Central Highlands (1985), the Corps has collaborated with local party committees and authorities in establishing 255 residential areas and many new hamlets, villages, communes and districts along the border, thereby creating a solid corridor within the posture of all-people national defence in the border.

Giving assistance to locals in animal husbandry

The Corps has proactively advised the Ministry of National Defence on handing over hundreds of hectares of  national defence and production land to localities so that they could make plans for socio-economic development and population arrangement. At the same time, it has invested hundreds of billions of VND in building inter-village, inter-communes roads, electricity networks, military-civilian health stations, schools, communal houses, and Rong houses to make contributions to stabilising and boosting production, increasing the people’s intellectual level, taking care of locals’ health, building new-style countryside and new cultural lifestyle, preserving and bringing into play their cultural identity, and gradually removing depraved customs. It has actively undertaken researches into crop transformation in accordance with soil conditions to increase the people’s productivity and income. It is worth noted that during the rejuvenation of rubber gardens, the Corps has cooperated with localities in allowing its workers and ethnic minority locals to intercrop its land, thereby creating employments and ensuring food for the people. Over the years, the Corps has built and repaired hundreds of kilometres of roads, one new hospital with 200 beds, and 11 military-civilian infirmaries to meet cadres, soldiers, employees and locals’ demands for medical examination and treatment. It has also constructed and handed over 8 primary and secondary schools, 2 boarding primary and secondary schools, and 11 nursery schools with 325 classes as the basis for ethnic minority children to have access to education. Up to now, ethnic minority people have considerably changed their production practices, raised their farming skills, achieved a sustainable per capita income of over 5 million VND per month, and increasingly improved their living standards.

Third, the Corps has participated in building strong political bases. To better localities’ leadership and direction capacity for comprehensive, sustainable development, the Corps has adopted various measures to take part in consolidating political bases. In addition to initiating new members as its ethnic minority workers into the Party, the Corps has actively encouraged village patriarchs, hamlet heads, and party cell secretaries who are ethnic minority people to become its workers, while proactively detecting and developing its local staff members into cadres of the Corps’ production teams and then localities. Moreover, it has selected and assigned cadres with good qualities and abilities, working at its units and companies to participate in the election of deputies to district and commune-level people’s councils so that they would directly give advice on building the political system at grass-roots level. It has also advised local party committees and authorities to effectively implement the movements, namely “all people unite in building new cultural lifestyle” and “all people take part in protecting national security,” while unmasking the hostile forces’ cunning artifices and plots of undermining the national great unity block. As a result, the political system in the Corps’ stationed areas has been increasingly consolidated and highly appreciated by local party committees, authorities and people. Up to now, the Corps has initiated more than 210 new members as ethnic minority people into the Party. 9 cadres of production teams, 12 hamlet heads, and 7 party cell secretaries are ethnic minority locals. The Corps has proactively cooperated with the Vietnam Fatherland Front at all levels and local election offices in appointing its cadres as candidates for the election of deputies to all-level people’s councils for the 2021-2026 tenure. All of them have won the election.

Fourth, the Corps has well carried out the mass mobilisation work as the basis for consolidating the national great unity block. Grasping resolutions and directives by the Party and the Central Military Commission, being imbued with Uncle Ho’s teachings that “the Kinh or Tho, Muong, Xan, Gia Rai, E De, Xe Dang, Ba Na people or other ethnic minority groups are all Vietnamese descendants and blood brothers, we will live, die, enjoy happiness, and suffer misery together, and help one another,” the Corps has directed its affiliated offices, units, companies, and factories to step up the mass mobilisation work. To be more specific, “the Corps and its companies, and production teams have maintained close-knit bond with provinces, districts, communes, and villages,” while its cadres, workers, and defence employees have really considered “villages as their home, border as their hometown, and ethnic minority locals as their siblings.” In the process, the Corps has creatively, effectively executed many twinning programmes together with a lot of mass mobilisation models, such as “maintaining a close-knit bond between Kinh and ethnic minority households,” “jar of rice of charity,” “vegetable garden of unity,” and “lunch of great unity.” At the same time, it has actively taken part in the movements, namely “the Military joins hands in building new-style countryside” and “joining hands in hunger eradication and poverty reduction” via specific, practical deeds. Since 2010, the Corps has constructed hundreds of houses for people under the preferential treatment policy, given 120 cows to families in difficulty, supplied fresh water during droughts, provided free medical examination and medicine for over 10,000 locals, and participated in natural disaster mitigation to stabilise the people’s life. Doing so has also helped cement the close-knit bond between the Military and the people, consolidate the national great unity block, and enable the Corps to become a solid fulcrum of local party committees, authorities, and people in the Central Highlands.

With their political resolve, responsibility, patriotism, comradeship and affection for compatriots, over the past 36 years, cadres, workers, and defence employees of the Corps 15 have greatly contributed to turning the Central Highlands suffering from war consequences into fruitful rubber, coffee, pepper fields and consolidating the ethnic minority people’s faith in the Party, the State, and the Military to meet the requirements of national construction and protection.

Col. KHUAT BA CAO, Secretary of the Corps’ Party Committee

Deputy Commander of the Corps