Defence Minister Ngo Xuan Lich (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – The victory of the southwest borderdefence war has provided valuable lessons for Vietnam in the cause of nationalsovereignty protection, Defence Minister Ngo Xuan Lich affirmed in an articlepublished by Nhan Dan newspaper on January 7.
The defence minister, who is also a member of the PartyCentral Committee’s Politburo and Deputy Secretary of the Central MilitaryCommission, recalled that after the victory of the national liberation war againstthe US, the people of both Vietnam and Cambodia shared the aspiration for alife in peace, independence and freedom so as to heal the wounds of war andbuild a prosperous country. But immediately after taking power in April 1975,the Pol Pot regime betrayed the Cambodian people and the national interest, andundertook a series of reactionary, aggressive and extremely brutal policies.
In the country, the Pol Pot regime stripped the people oftheir rights to freedom and democracy, turning them into slaves, while carryingout a genocide targeting intellectuals, religious followers, ethnic minoritygroups, overseas Vietnamese and other innocent people, pushing the Cambodiannation to the brink of destruction and threatening the security of countries inthe Indochinese peninsula.
Encouraged and helped by reactionary forces, the Pol Potregime unexpectedly changed their attitude towards Vietnam, sparing nothing tosmear Vietnam and incite racial hatred, demanding re-demarcation of the borderbetween the two countries and calling Vietnam their number-one and inheritedenemy. From 1975 to 1978, the regime launched various invading attacks onVietnam’s islands and border areas on expanding scales and increasing frequency,conducting a range of bloody massacres of Vietnamese people along theVietnam-Cambodia border.
The Pol Pot regime’s acts had violated Vietnam’sindependence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, seriously breaking internationallaw and damaging the Vietnam-Cambodia bilateral relationship. At the end of1978, the Pol Pot government moved 10 divisions to the border with Vietnam in preparationfor a general offensive on Vietnam.
In such a situation, at the beginning of December 1978, thePolitburo and the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of VietnamCentral Committee adopted the resolve to defeat the Pol Pot regime to safeguardthe peaceful life for the Vietnamese people.
Thereafter, the Vietnamese military and people conducted strongcounter-attacks and offensive campaigns, successfully driving the Pol Pot invadingtroops from Vietnam’s territories.
After that, responding to the pressing request of theKampuchean United Front for National Salvation (KUFNS), Vietnam’s volunteersoldiers have braved all hardship and sacrifice to coordinate with the KUFNS armedforces in launching a general offensive to liberate Phnom Penh capital city andthe entire country of Cambodia from the Pol Pot regime.
According to the Defence Minister, the victory of thesouthwest border defence war has smashed the wicked schemes of the Pol Potregime and reactionary forces to firmly safeguard Vietnam’s independence andterritorial integrity while helping the Cambodian people escape from the disasterof genocide and thwarting the attempts to divide the traditional solidarity ofthe three Indochinese nations – Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
This is also a great victory of the Cambodian people, aswell as of the noble spirit of internationalism and the impartial andwholehearted support of the Party, State, people and People’s Army of Vietnam,which opened up a new era in Vietnam-Cambodia relationship – an era of peacefuldevelopment and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries based onthe principle of peace and respect for each other’s independence, sovereigntyand territorial integrity, contributing to maintaining peace and stability inthe region and the world.
Minister Lich pointed out that many precious lessons can bedrawn out from the victory of the southwest border defence war, which bearsdeep theoretical and practical significance for Vietnam’s cause of nationalconstruction and defence in the current era.
One of the lessons is to always uphold vigilance and closelyfollow the situation in order to timely detect and defeat any plots andattempts of invasion of hostile forces. The country must be prepared in allaspects to defeat all forms of invasion war and transgression of border, seasand island, as well as conspiracies of “peaceful evolution”, riot and overthrowso as to firmly protect national independence, sovereignty and territorialintegrity.
The second lesson is to build strong people-based defenceposition, especially in strategic and key areas, the border, the sea andislands. Strong defence forces and people-based defence constituted theessential factors in the victory of the southwest border defence war and thejoint triumph over the genocidal regime.
It is necessary to make full use of the combined strength ofthe entire nation and political system along with garnering the support andsympathy of the international community in safeguarding the country’s independence,sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Third but not last, the Defence Minister stressed the needto build a professional and elite people’s army with increasingly combatingcapacity. The army must strengthen its political power and absolute loyalty tothe Fatherland, the Party and the people, and the Party’s absolute and directleadership of the army must be maintained and enhanced.-VNA
