As a moutainous and the third lagest province, Son La neighbours with 7 provinces of the country and has 274 km of border line with Lao. Son La has tough terrain with high mountains, deep streams. Two big rivers, namely Da and Ma run through the province connecting the province with the Northern Delta and Thanh Hoa Province. Due to the creation of the terrain, Son La has both highlands and wide plain fields which are beneficial for economic development and defence consolidation. Fully aware of this, over the past years, together with strengthening socio-economic development, the Provincial Party Committee and Peopple’s Committee have focused on leading, directing the implementation of military and defence tasks with emphasis on building the firm defensive area as a premise for the protection of the country.

First, the province strengthens its leadership and direction over the forces and people with armed forces as the core in building the firm defensive area. Accordingly, the Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee direct their junior levels to grasp and seriously adhere to the documents relating to this work, such as: the Resolution No. 28-NQ/TW of the Politburo (X tenure); the Decree No. 152/2007/NĐ-CP; the Decree No. 02/2016/NĐ-CP; the Decree No. 21/2019/NĐ-CP of the Government; the Program No. 19-Ctr/TU dated 09 December 2008, the Program No. 20-Ctr/TU dated 10^th February 2014 and the Resolution No. 17-NQ/TU dated 20^th February 2013 of the Provincial Party Committee on building the defensive area in the 2013 – 2020 period and beyond. Annually, the Province issues resolutions and directives on defence and military work; directs its junior party committees to set out guidelines, goals, and measures for implementing their resolutions; its junior authorities to consolidate and maintain effectively the operation of the Steering Committee for building defensive area. At the same time, it directs functional bodies to regularly update the legal documents relating to the building of defensive area; screen, adjust, supplement the master plan of socio-economic development associated with the establishment of military posture in the defensive area. During the implementation, the Province attaches importance to promoting the core role of the Military Commands, the Public Security and the Border Guard, as well as other sectors and unions in advising and implementing. At the same time, it focuses on leading and directing the implementation of training and exercises of defensive area, the disaster and SAR drills, etc and opportunely draws out lessons, and finds out new issues so that it can have timely measures for correction, contributing to operating the mechanism for leading, managing and directing the building and operation of the defensive area in a smooth, synchronous and effective manner.

An inter-forces conference chaired by Son La Party Committee's Permanent members

As a mountainous and thinly populated province with majority of its population is ethnic minorities while the leading, managing and operating levels of grassroots cadres for this task are somewhat limited, the Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee focus on building the strong grassroots political systems and strengthening propagation and education to raise the awareness for its cadres, party members and its entire people. Renew the leading method; actively restructure its organistion; strengthen the enhancement of political theory and expertise for cadres, especially those are women and ethnic minorities in order to make party committees and authorities at all levels, especially the grassroots levels in mountainous and border areas capable of leading, managing, operating and implementing effectively the tasks of socio-economic development and defence and security consolidation. Strengthen training, education and dissemination of defence and security knowledge for cadres, party members and people to make them fully aware of the defence and military lines of the Party; defence and military tasks; the plots and schemes of “peaceful evolution” of hostile forces. Amid the hardships in economy, the Provincial Party Committee and People’s Commmittee have actively mobilised resources for implementing social welfare, hunger eradication and poverty alleviation, and the policies for races, religions and the Military rear, etc. Thereby, consensus has been created between the Party, the authority and the people, and the “people’s heart and mind” has been gradually consolidated.

In order to generate material resources for the defensive area, the Province has fostered socio-economic development associated with defence, security, external affairs. Accordingly, the combination between socio-economic development with defence and security has been implemented right from each development strategy and plan of the departments, sectors and localities. In the development of agriculture and forestry, the Province proactively adjusts its plants and animals towards mass production. In addition, the Province has actively mobilised resources from economiv sectors for the development of infrastructure, maintained the industries that it has competitive advantages, the dual-use industrial projects; accelerate labour structure and job creation to improve income, reduce poverty rate and maintain political stability; developed an interconnected road system and renovated irrigation network; popularised electricity network and built new style rural area. Implemente the civilian-military healthcare at grassroots line to ensure 100% of the communes have medical clinics; gradually improve its hospitals and enhance the capability of the medical staff. During the implementation, the Province directs its Military Commands and Public Security to assess and supervise closely the plans and projects for socio-economic development of the province, especially in the focal areas.

Building the strong armed forces, strengthen and develop the military posture is an important content in the building of the defensive area which has been paid much attention and leadership by the Province’s leaders. As for the regular force, the Province conducts restructuring towards lean, compact and flexible direction, focusing on focal areas. It has also built all-strong units; held thorough training for soldiers to enhance the level of combat readiness and dealing with emergencies. As for the militia and self-defence forces, it adheres to the motto of “where there is party organisation, there is militia and self-defence forces” and “people select, people nominate, people care”. The mobile militia force is prioritised and considered as the core. Up to date, the number of militia in the province has reached over 2% of its population, while the number of party members has reached nearly 23% of its population with high quality and capable of conducting combat readiness and settling complicated matters emerging at grassroots level. The reserve force is built in the principle of proximity and availability. Attention is paid to training and public work, to building the political institutions in the crucial areas.

Together with force development, the Province directs its Military Command to study and make detail plan of some components of the military posture as background for economic development associated with defence and security and begin to build the approved ones, such as: headquarter’s tunnel, training fields, air-defence posture, etc. At the same time, make the most use of the terrain, build defence structures, communication routes, irrigation systems to serve production in peace time and combat missions in war time.

To build the increasingly firm defensive area, in the coming time, the Son La Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee will continue to grasp thoroughly the defence and military lines of the Party, foster the Action Program of the Province on implementing the Resolution No. 28-NQ/TW and the Central Resolution No. 8 (11^th tenure) on “Strategy for Fatherland protection in the new situation”, and implement all contents of building the defensive area, namely potential, force and posture, to meet the requirements of the mission of Fatherland construction and defence.

HOANG QUOC KHANH, Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee