A meeting to mark the 50th founding anniversary of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NFLSV) was held at the Thong Nhat (Reunification) Hall in Ho Chi Minh City on Dec. 20.

Prominent at the ceremony were Truong Tan Sang, Politburo member permanent member of the Party Central Committee Secretariat; Ha Thi Khiet, Secretary of the Party Central Committee and Chairwoman of the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Mass Mobilisation; and Huynh Dam, member of the Party Central Committee and President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF).

Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh, State President Nguyen Minh Triet, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong sent flower baskets for congratulation.

VFF President Huynh Dam delivered a speech, stressing the significance of the establishment of the NFLSV on Dec. 20, 1960 as a turning point of the southern revolutionary movement.

He said the NFLSV played a great role in the following 15-year period that saw the Vietnamese army and people liberate the southern region and reunify the whole country, writing a new page in Vietnam’s heroic history.

Addressing the ceremony, the permanent member of the Party Central Committee Secretariat, Truong Tan Sang, said the Party and State value and respect the contributions made by the NFLSV, the alliance of pro-nation, democracy and peace forces, and other patriotic forces.

The Party Central Committee is acutely aware that the country of Vietnam which is built and developed over thousands of years is a priceless property of all Vietnamese and the people are the country’s master, Sang said, stressing that the nation’s mighty power has its source in the great national unity.

He expressed his wish that the VFF would continue upholding the heroic tradition of the NFLSV, enriching and diversifying forms of emulation movements and activities in order to gather and unite all Vietnamese in and outside the country and mobilise all resources for the construction and defence of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

The VFF should call upon Vietnamese people to rise above complexes and prejudices about the past uphold the national spirit and tradition of forgiveness and generosity, and unite in a common front to build Vietnam into a country of rich people, strong nation, and democratic, equal and civilised society.

On the occasion, Sang affirmed that the Vietnamese people is forever grateful to President Ho, fallen combatants, revolutionary veterans, heroic mothers and people of all walks of life who contributed to the struggle for national liberation in the past and the national construction and defence cause at present.

He also expressed thank to the Lao and Cambodian people, international organisations and people who love peace and justice all over the world for their great and effective assistance to the NFLSV and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, and their strong support to the Vietnamese people’s just cause.

On the occasion of the NFLSV’s anniversary, the Party and State decided to present the Order of Great Unity to 70 individuals who used to be leaders and members of the NFLSV, the Advisory Council, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, and the alliance of pro-nation, democracy and peace forces, for their contributions to the nation./.