The night-walkers of Uganda

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Ceausescu’s child spies
Level 1 
l
Elementary
1 
Key Vocabulary 
Fill the gaps using these key words from the text.
gradually dictator recruit (verb) spy blackmail (verb) 
complex archive sporty informer secret police
1. If you are 
, you enjoy playing different sports.
2. An 
is a large collection of old documents.
3. A 
is someone who uses force to take power and control a country.
4. If something happens 
, it happens slowly and in small stages or amounts.
5. An 
is someone who gives information secretly to the police.
6. The 
is a police force that works secretly to protect the government.
7. If you 
someone, you ask them to join an organisation.
8. A 
is someone whose job is to find out secret information.
9. If you 
someone, you say that you will tell people secrets about them if they do not give you
money or do what you ask them to do.
10. 
is the opposite of simple.
2
Find the Information
Look in the text and find this information as quickly as possible.
1. What was the name of the Romanian dictator?
2. When did he die?
3. How did he die?
4. What was the name of his secret police?
5. What town did his son control?
6. How many child informers were there in this town?
Ceausescu’s police forced children to become spies 
by Daniel McLaughlin in Budapest
In the late 1980s the countries of Eastern Europe were gradually becoming more liberal. The Romanian 
dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu did not support this process and did not want Romania to become more liberal. 
Now documents from the communist period in Romania have shown that Ceausescu’s secret police, known 
as the Securitate, recruited thousands of children to spy on schoolfriends, parents and teachers. 
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Ceausescu was shot in December 1989 and communist rule in Romania ended soon after. Now many peo-
ple in Romania are asking why some of the agents who recruited the child spies continued to work for the 
security services after Ceausescu died in 1989. “In every Romanian county there were complex networks 
of these children, aged between 12 and 14,” said Cazimir Ionescu, a member of the state council which is 
studying all the Securitate documents. A Romanian historian, Marius Oprea, found a collection Securitate 
documents in the Transylvanian town of Sibiu. Ceausescu’s son Nicu controlled Sibiu for many years.
“In Sibiu in 1989 the Securitate recruited 830 informers; 170 of them were under the age of 18,” Mr Oprea 
said. “If this was the same all over Romania, you could say that possibly 15% of the informers in the country 
were children.” Historians believe the Securitate had hundreds of thousands of informers by 1989, as Soviet 
power began to weaken in Eastern Europe. “What kind of information could these children give, except 
information about their family, teachers, and so on?” Mr Oprea asked. “This shows that, by 1989, the
Securitate was controlling its own people.” 
The children had to tell Securitate agents about their friends’ and families’ opinions on the Communist party. 
They also had to tell them if their friends and families listened to western radio stations, had any contacts 
with foreigners or told jokes about Ceausescu. 
“In the 1980s it was difficult for the secret police to recruit informers so they had to blackmail people, even 
children, with things they had done wrong at school or with things the police knew about them,” Mr Oprea 
said. The secret police were particularly interested in intelligent and sporty children because they were in 
teams and clubs and had contact with many teachers, other children and their parents. 
After 1989 many of those who recruited children got better jobs in the secret police, and some brought their 
young spies to work with them when they left school. “This is a tragedy which we must tell the public about 
but we must also punish the people responsible for this situation,” said Stejarel Olaru, a historian working 
with Mr Oprea at the state institute for studying communist crimes. 
Mr Oprea first heard about the child-spy programme soon after 1989, but at that time the ex-communists 
who were in power after the fall of Ceausescu were not interested in his story. Mr Oprea remained silent for 
15 years. After the elections of 2004, the old politicians lost power and the Securitate archives were opened 
up. Romania hopes to join the EU next January and the EU wants Romania to open all the old Securitate 
archives so the public can see them.