Delegates to the get-together at VNA's headquarters in Hanoi (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Officials, experts, journalists, and technicians of the Vietnam NewsAgency (VNA) who worked through different periods in Cambodia met on January 7,recalling the memorable time of hectic reporting from the neighbouring country.
Addressing the get-together at the VNA’s headquarters in Hanoi, VNA GeneralDirector Nguyen Duc Loi said in late 1978, a group of nearly 30 officials,journalists, telegraphers, and drivers of the VNA headed to Cambodia to reportthe joint struggle of volunteer Vietnamese soldiers and Cambodian army andpeople against the Pol Pot genocidal regime.
Between 1978 and 1988, the VNA officials and experts wholeheartedly assisted thebuilding of the Cambodian News Agency - SPK (now AKP), he said, adding thathundreds of VNA leaders, reporters, editors, officials, technicians, anddrivers were sent to AKP to help the agency with professional skills, apparatusorganisation and technical equipment.
They surmounted hardships to contribute to writing “golden pages” in history ofthe VNA, Loi noted.
VNA’s former General Director Tran Mai Huong recalled the VNA’s support for thepreparation of the birth of the SPK on December 3, 1978, which carried news andphotos on the establishment of the Kampuchean United Front for NationalSalvation a day earlier.
At the same time, the VNA dispatched reporters and technicians to battlefieldsin Cambodia to cover the fight, he said, noting that the agency continued toaid its Cambodian counterpart in reporting, technical infrastructure andpersonnel training after January 7, 1979.
“The VNA’s history should devote a chapter to international duties, includingthose carried out in Laos and Cambodia. We are happy and proud to contribute tothat glorious historic chapter,” said former VNA General Director Nguyen QuocUy, who was VNA correspondent inCambodia in the 1980s.-VNA
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