The 290th Radar Regiment (also known as the Ma River Radar Regiment), the Air Defence and Air Force Service, was established on the 21^st March 1958 under the Decree No. 047/ND of the Ministry of National Defence. Right after its inception, the Regiment quickly perfected its organizational structure and staff, grasped its functions and missions, and focused on training to master weapons and equipment. At 0:00 sharp of the 10^th July 1960, it officially joined the network to protect the country’s airspace  over the 4^th Military Region’s battlefield. Constantly sticking to the fierce fronts and overcoming countless difficulties and hardships, the Regiment has always successfully accomplished its tasks of opportunely detecting and providing radar intelligence for the artillery and missile units deployed in the areas from Ma River to Quang Tri to shoot down the enemy’s aircraft. Besides, it also gave early warnings to the air defence and air force troops beyond the 20^th parallel to increase their levels of combat readiness to defeat the enemy’s air strikes, contributing to the Service’s successful protection of critical targets and transportation routes, and participation in  joint operations.

At present, the Regiment is tasked with  controlling the airspace and protect critical  infrastructure in strategic areas in  the Centre and Central Highlands of Vietnam. Feeling proud to be a heroic unit, generations of the Regiment’s officers and soldiers continue to promote its tradition, exercise constant vigilance, maintain high level of combat readiness, and successfully accomplish their tasks of controlling and protecting  its assigned airspace,  ensuring the proactiveness in any air situations. One of the decisive factors in enabling the Regiment to successfully fulfill its missions over the past 60 years is the fact that the Regiment Party Executive Committee and Commanders have always attached importance to making its Party Committee pure and strong, and ceaselessly enhancing the leadership, fighting power, role, and  responsibility of officers and party members, particularly the leading cadres at all echelons.

Making plan of party work and political work

The task of protecting the national airspace is posing high requirements with complicated and unpredictable situations. To accomplish its tasks, the Regiment Party Executive Committee and commanders have sought to further strengthen the building of its strong and pure Party Committee. First, it is necessary to place emphasis  on making the party executive committees and party organizations politically and ideologically strong; and strengthening the management, education, and training of cadres and party members, especially the leading cadres.. Given its possession of various modernised equipment, scattering of radar stations, extreme weather, etc., the propaganda, education and cultivation of cadres and party members who are politically steadfast, uphold their sense of responsibility and spare no sacrifice and effort to overcome any difficulties and hardships to accomplish their tasks are of significant importance. To that end, the Regiment’s officers and soldiers  are required to learn, study, grasp, and strictly adopt the Party’s viewpoints and guidelines, the State’s laws and policies, and the missions of  Vietnam’s People’s Army (VPA), the Service and the Regiment. They are also requested to study and follow Ho Chi Minh’s thought, morals and style,  the Directive No. 05-CT/TW of the Politburo (12^th tenure), and  the Resolution of the 4^th Plenum of the Party Central Committee  (12^th tenure) on Party building and rectification with specific, practical and suitable criteria. Besides,  it is important to well fulfill the task of  managing party members in both quantity and quality through mission assignment, meetings and study, and lay  emphasis  on managing those working in independent units and on seperate detachment. It is required that the cadres and party members of the Party Committee have firm political steadfastness, high sense of responsibility, healthy lifestyle, appropriate management and command capabilities, and professional expertise, and no one have manifestations of degradation in politics, morals and lifestyle,  “self-evolution” and “self-transformation”.

Second, the criteria for building strong and pure party organizations are concretized in light of the  Resolution of the 4^th Plenum of the Party Central Committee (12^th tenure) to make it relevant to the features and mission requirements of each office and unit. Accordingly, party organizations of offices are required to enhance their standard of grasping the upper levels’ resolutions and directives as well as their level of advising and building plans for directing, instructing and checking the units. Party organizations of radar stations need to pay attention to improving their comprehensive capabilities, especially their leadership in implementing political and ideological education, combat readiness training,  and promoting good order and discipline. The party executive committees at all  levels, directly the secretaries, have to grasp resolutions and directives of upper echelons and  political missions of their units; and carefully prepare draft resolutions to ensure the their comprehensive leadership  while focusing on dealing with weaknessess  and newly emerging issues. The Regiment Party Executive Committee need to give prominence to the exemplary roles of cadres and party members, especially the leading  ones, and resolutely combats and criticizes  wrong viewpoints and  perceptions.

"A law weekly" legal education

Third, it is necessary to strengthen the  party executive committees  in both quantity and quality; combine the building of  party executive committees  with the cultivation of leading cadres; and align the  cultivation of qualified  party members with the development of cadres. The consolidation of  party executive committee is associated with the planning, deployment and promotion of the leading cadres of organisations and units to ensure comprehensiveness, appropriate structures and focus. In order to improve the  standard of cadres, party executive committees and commanders at all levels have to regularly attach importance to training them in command and staff, and their ability to perform party work and political work. Furthermore, cadres are rotated among stations,  units and offices, thus  enabling them to experience different working environment. These measures are aimed to cultivate a corps of cadres who possess good political quality, capacity, dignity,  working style, prestige, capability to well fufill their duties, and are truly core leaders in units .

Fourth, it is important to enhance the effectiveness of  inspection and supervision. Firmly entrenching themselves in the guiding principle of “supervision must be widened, inspection must be focalized”, the party executive committees have always grasped and strengthened their inspection and supervision work in association with  the implementation of party discipline. The Regiment Inspection Commission and party committees at all levels have built and thoroughly implemented inspection and  supervision plans during the term and annually, with a focus on  dealing with weaknesses and  members of the party executive committees and commandants of units and party organizations  with signs of violations.

Promoting its heroic tradition and the achievements gained over the past 60 years of foundation, fighting and development, in the coming time, the Party Executive Committee of the Ma River Radar Regiment  will continue to lead the enhancement of the quality of Party building, making it the core factor in leading the Regiment to successfully complete the task of guarding and firmly controlling the airspace over the Central and Central  Highlands regions .

Colonel Trinh Van Chien, Commissar of the Regiment