Managing and protecting the sovereignty, security and safety of seas and islands of the Fatherland are the duties and responsibilities of the entire Party, people and army, in which Vietnam Coast Guard plays a key and specialised role. Successfully accomplishing this task requires all cadres and soldiers to be fully equipped with professional qualification, the capacity of law enforcement in particular.

Vietnam Coast Guard (VCG) is tasked with nationally managing the security, order and safety; enforcing Vietnamese law and international treaties to which Vietnam is a party on waters and islands of the Fatherland.

Given the assigned functions and duties, VCG has been proving itself as a force of a country which is responsible for upholding the sea security, order and safety according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982. VCG has proactively advised the Central Military Commission, Ministry of National Defence  to propose policies and solutions to flexibly and effectively solve any situations at sea without being unexpected. All units have enhanced their patrol, inspection and struggle against criminal activities, search and rescue, at the same time, promoted the propaganda and education of law, creating basic changes regarding the awareness and sense of legal compliance among fishermen who are doing maritime economic activities so that they could join hands to protect the sovereignty over seas and islands, contributing to building an environment of peace, cooperation and development.

VCG Reion 4 receives the Second-class Feat Order (Photo: qdnd.vn)

However, the situation on our waters has still been in complex and unpredictable development with new traditional and non-traditional issues, and potential risks of instability. The violations of sovereignty over seas and islands, crimes, trading frauds, maritime unsafety and pollution are on the rising trend, with the appearance of many violations committed by foreign elements. The illegal fishing by transnational parties has made it more difficult to discover and solve. Meanwhile, the capacity of ships, weapons and technical equipment owned by the VCG, though having been gradually developed, has hardly met the task requirements; plus the wide areas of working, the extreme weather conditions at sea, the lack of staff and personnel, the limited financial support, etc. In order to successfully accomplish all of their tasks without any unexpectedness, it requires the VCG to improve their law enforcement capacity with several main solutions as follows:

Firstly, focusing on building the VCG strong in politics, ideology and organisation. Owning to the specific features of its working environment, VCG has frequently faced difficulties, even risks and dangers. This, therefore, requires all cadres and soldiers to obtain a stable political spirit, be ideally steadfast, and absolutely loyal to the Party, State and People; be politically sensible and have high vigilance against the plots and schemes of criminals and hostile forces. To meet these demands, all offices and units need to pay attention to the political and ideological education for all cadres and soldiers; taking the building of the loyalty and sacrifice for the sovereignty and security of seas and islands as the key target, at the same time, cultivating the revolutionary morality, the pure lifestyle and the will of overcoming difficulties; building the sense of discipline for all cadres and soldiers, making them uphold the spirit of “responsibility – discipline - humanity”, act within their authorities when doing the tasks, and strictly follow the law, policies and orders when dealing with all situations at sea.

VCG Region 4 conducts task on sea (Photo: qdnd.vn)

Regarding the organisation, grasping the viewpoint on “assuring the intensive and unified leadership by the Politburo, the Secretariat, the President, the Government, the Central Military Commission and the Defence Ministry on building the VCG and protecting the sovereignty, security and safety of seas and islands of the Fatherland”, the organisation of the VCG is within the general organisation of the Army, assuring the leadership and command which are unified, thorough, rapid and effective in the law enforcement. It is necessary to intensively build plans and projects on developing the VCG which is elite, compact, strong, professional and mobile, with the reasonable forces and weapon-based development; having the professional, military, legal and foreign knowledge; strictly combining all working methods to properly solve all situations at sea. When the requirements of enforcing the law and protecting the national security, social order and safety at sea are more serious, intensively building the “revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled, modern” and professional Vietnam Coast Guard is a basic issue and a long-lasting strategy. Accordingly, the entire force needs to pay attention to improving the VCG technical and tactical levels; completing the patrol and control process, building the plans on protecting the sea and island sovereignty and enforcing the law; increasing the night training and long term training at sea or in extreme weather conditions; improving the mobility, ability of dealing with situations, training with new weapons, technical equipment and newly-received ships, assuring that all soldiers could master both weapons, technical equipment and situations in all conditions, at the same time, well organise military exercises and practice on solving situations using the sea charts,  and the combined military exercises. Together, it is necessary to gradually modernise ships, weapons, equipment of sea reconnaissance and inspection; enhance the high-tech applications, information system, satellites, radars, surveillance cameras in order to improve the capacity of management and control in the entire waters; promote the administrative reform towards strength, professionalism and modernisation; check and complete the rules and regulations to assure the unified and intensive management, and the rapid, efficient and legally-based administrative procedures.

Law enforcement is a complicated task, which requires the coordination by many parts and forces to create a general power. Playing a key role, the VCG needs to strictly cooperate and coordinate with related organisations and forces. The recent coordination experience has shown that the VCG, based on the regulations and rules, has used a variety of contents, forms and solutions of coordinating with other forces and coastal localities to do activities from collecting and exchanging information, patrolling, inspecting and protecting the sovereignty, sovereignty rights and jurisdiction; struggling and handling any violations, preventing crimes, to searching and rescuing, etc. However, the coordination between the VCG with other forces remains limited only in some fields, even ineffective sometimes, which has been basically limited in information exchange, situation evaluation and prediction and experience exchange. Besides, some legal documents which regulate the functions and duties of forces enforcing law at sea are still overlapped, causing the certain difficulties in their coordination with each other. To successfully accomplish the assigned tasks, together with conducting comprehensively all working fields, the VCG needs to make synchronous solutions to improve the effectiveness of its coordination with other forces, focusing on completing the interdisciplinary coordination mechanism, building detailed plans, clearly defining responsibility and authority; promoting the technological advances and information, assuring the rapid and accurate data sharing among forces; frequently holding briefings, meetings, and reviews on coordination to learn from experience and improve the effectiveness. In order to enhance the connection and high unity in cooperation and coordination, the VCG need to proactively widen its relationships, complete the forms and methods of coordination such as exchanges, twinning, joint practice and exercises on searching, rescuing and handling complicated situations at sea, installing the hotline, and maintaining the discipline of hasty briefings and reports.

VCG Region 4 conducts law enforcement on sea (Photo: qdnd.vn)

Together, the VCG should pay attention to improving the capacity and efficiency of international cooperation on the law enforcement at sea. VCG must prove itself as a responsible force of a responsible country in the international community in maintaining the maritime security, well playing the role as an active member in regional and international organisations, at the same time, continues to maintain the activities of the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia Information Sharing Centre; exchanges information of maritime security, piracy, armed robbery, search and rescue with the law enforcement forces from other countries; goes patrolling with the law enforcement from countries which share sea borders with Vietnam. The VCG should also promote the exchanges, share experience of education, training and further training for Coast Guard cadres and soldiers, through which, to strengthen the friendship and cooperative relations with other countries, making a contribution to improving the law enforcement, increasing the unity and mutual understanding, affirming the position, prestige and specialised capability of the VCG in law enforcement.

Have investments to equip modern weapons and technical equipment for the VCG. This is an essential factor to improve the capacity and effectiveness of law enforcement at sea, also to keep up with the development, and be suitable and compatible with the equipment used by the nationally and internationally combined forces. In recent years, the VCG has received much concern and investment from the Party, State and Ministry of National Defence to straightly advance to modernity such as ships, vessels and aircrafts, especially the modern vessels with large displacement, to make sure that they could be on long-term activities in extreme weather, and in high capability of combat coordination. However, the VCG still needs to be upgraded with more modern systems of command, management and supervision, equipped with more powerful lethal and non-lethal weapons to conduct the law enforcement. The systems of surveillance and communication also need to be upgraded to timely support the leadership, commanding, patrolling, controlling and dealing with unexpected situations. All vehicles of reconnaissance, technical equipment and tools to support the law enforcement at sea; equipment of safety, search and rescue, prevention and solving the maritime pollution, etc. also need to be standardised. At the same time, it is necessary to invest in building the technical infrastructure systems and material sources, assuring the successful accomplishment of all regular and sudden tasks; bring into play the internal strength, enhance the coordination and cooperation with other forces to improve the problem-solving skills without any suddenness.

Researching and implementing the above solutions has a crucial and practical meaning to improve the VCG’s capacity and effectiveness in doing the tasks, meeting the requirements of managing and protecting the order, security and safety of the sacred waters and islands of the Fatherland.

Major Gen, MA. TRAN VAN LUONG, Commander of Coast Guard Region 4