The following is a contribution by Jean Chrysostome K. Kiyala to JiC’s ongoing symposium on Mark Drumbl and Barbora Holá’s new book, Informers Up Close. Dr. Kiyala is a Senior Lecturer at the International Centre of Nonviolence, in the Faculty of Management Sciences in Durban University of Technology in South Africa. For all other contributions to the symposium, please see here.

Informers Up Close stands as a synthetic corpus of multidimensional memories and experiences in Communist Czechoslovakia. The country was initially formed as an independent state on 28 October 1918 in the wake of declaring independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Czechoslovakia comprised the historical Czech lands (Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia) and Slovakia.   Communists took over power in Czechoslovakia in 1948; the Communist regime continued until 1989 and was subverted by the Velvet Revolution that commenced on 17 November and led to the end of one-party Communist rule in the country on 28 November 1989. 

Drumbl and Holá examine the trajectory of transitional justice following the Velvet Revolution, efforts that sought to handle the fate of informers who had operated within the ambit of the Czechoslovak State Security Police (Státní bezpečnost (StB)) during the Communist rule. Drumbl and Holá outline the poignancy of being an informer under Communism and the fate of people who served as informers—a term that refers to “all categories of StB secret collaborators, including agents, informers (as one of the sub- categories used by the StB until 1972), residents, owners of conspirational flats, confidants, and candidates for secret collaboration)”. Beside the brutalities and inhumanities of the Communist party, what matters most in Informers Up Close, are the processes and diverse contours of justice aimed at holding former StBs accountable under the transitional dispensation that inaugurated the new political era of Czechoslovakia. 

 The book begins with the history of Communist Czechoslovakia and the StB, including its structure, modus operandiand interrelations with national security. The book effectively traces informers’ missions in the StB and the behavioral patterns of recruitment. It then offers a repertoire of informers’ narrated stories: the intimate and emotional character that spun around the life of informers along with their paradoxical portrayals (victims, heroes, or traitors). This book unwraps memories filled with emotions and rancor. It presents justice pathways to redress the past harm of informing and identifies salient upshots of the transitional processes. Finally, the authors eloquently recapitulate the ubiquity of informers and offer their perspectives on new directions in understanding the term ‘informers’ outside of repressive states. 

Here, in this last space, the authors shed light on the distinctly politicized characterization and perception of informers. The authors assert that there could be a category of informers who will be held as heroes, specifically “Individuals who betrayed others so as to inform to the successful resistance rather than against the successful resistance”. These individuals would not be subject to excommunication (or reconciliation) regardless of the motives of their operations. Drumbl and Holá for instance refer to individuals who share information with military forces in a context whereby an iniquitous foreign power occupies a country: such informers are perceived as strikingly different after liberation than those who informed to the resistance. Indeed, a retrospective glance at informers in the Communist Czechoslovakia thereby opens horizons for considering their prospective role in liberal times.

This book is important because it complicates the concept of informing and humanistically presents the ambiguities of people who become informers. The book foregrounds the semantic differences in the concept of ‘informers’, which subsequently determines the varied fates of those who informed. These range from adulation to scorn. For example, the prominent case of “Deep Throat” who triggered the downfall of the US President R. Nixon in the Watergate scandal; and Soviet Pavlik Morozov, “who allegedly denounced his father and grandfather to Stalinist authorities, was venerated and mythologized” but then became widely ridiculed following the fall of the Soviet Union. The authors frame the diverse perceptions and characterizations of informers as depending on political conditioning, which can make some informers such as whistleblowers be seen as intrepid actors “who valiantly expose corruption, abuse, bullying, crime, sexism, public health violations, and sleaze’”. 

In contrast, another variant become considered as traitors: those who trade states’ information to adversarial and hostile governments; these are often subjected to excruciating retribution. For instance, Ukraine has recently initiated the prosecution of its own citizens for helping the Russians harm Ukrainians, and thousands of Nazi acolytes were summerly executed throughout Europe in an extra-judicial fashion, while others were publicly humiliated. 

Drumbl and Holá expose their readership to the intricate tales of informers. Deploying the scientific tools at their disposal, together with each single sentence of the book being meticulously crafted, the authors demonstrate great care, professionalism, and sensitivity in reporting Czechoslovak informer stories and experiences. For example, they remark:

We cannot see and assess their facial expressions and gestures. We cannot hear their words. Instead, as researchers, we avail ourselves of the secret police files to gesture towards the emotions that might have driven informers to engage (and continue—or eschew and resist— engaging) with StB officers.

A reader familiar with the works of these authors may not be surprised by the degree of humanism they deploy. After all, they have a track record of sophistication in this regard, for instance, when it comes to talking about the life experiences of misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misrepresented realities, namely of child soldiers. 

While the contemporary medium of justice centralizes retribution for categories such as child soldiers and informers, the authors approach these intricate phenomena with what can be perceived as ubuntu—African humanism that focuses on care and restoration of both victims and perpetrators, dually, and even as one. The ontology of ubuntu diverges from the conventional judicial take on perpetrators.  Often prosecutorial proceedings focus on the ordeals of victims, and the case of a state suffering prejudice as a result of informers, spies or collaborators, harsh punishment serves as deterrence and the humanity of the alleged perpetrators are negated. Recognizing the troubled circumstances of informers, Drumbl and Holá however take readers back to discerning “why people engaged with the StB and informed on others, including their families, neighbors, coworkers, and colleagues.” Indeed, the particular contexts of informing — such as operating under a military occupation of a country, an authoritarian rule, and navigating constrained social spaces — are essential in understanding the fate of informers of all kinds, whether state agents or non-state agents. A good grasp of informing activities’ motivations, especially under the Communist Czechoslovakia, is pivotal to determining their fate and defining a principled model of holding them accountable.  

The authors offer a heuristic argument in this regard, which dovetails six factors in assessments of responsibility: the harm caused, the extent of constraint, the length of time someone informed, their motivation, the content of the supplied information, and the awareness people had that they were informers and of what results would flow from their informing. For Drumbl and Holá, dignity remains a foundational principle.

The authors observe that, in the Czech Republic, transitional mechanisms of holding informers accountable were more retributive than restorative as the country sought to pave its way to democracy. While such approaches are understandable, the authors identify shortcomings therein.   Drumbl has extensively dealt with restorative justice in response to the limitations of the conventional criminal justice system in complex situations such as the child soldiering phenomenon, as has his co-author, Holá. Given how StB informers were hurt as they hurt others and given their frailties and their human needs, the imperative of ubuntu and forgiveness would have made transitional justice more restorative and rehabilitative. 

Informers Up Close is a cutting-edge and inspiring book that reimagines informers and fosters novel accountability measures for their past actions. Informers suffered resentment, they were ostracized, but transitional justice was too politicized to fairly consider the poignant reality of informing life. In light of the ubiquity of informing, this book offers a blueprint to reinvigorate transitional justice interventions in the future. This book needs to be taken seriously.