Answers without answer: allegations of abuse and mismanagement in the ETH ignored

One cannot blame sturdy mountaineers on this street poster for their desire to keep their recipe secret. This is their cheese after all. Unlike them, ETH bureaucrats run their business on public money, yet want to hide from the public how they spent them. Messrs Eichler and Schiesser, respectively ETH Zurich and ETH Rat Presidents, with the same stubbornness we see on the Appenzeller cheese secret holders faces repeat "ETH sind und bleibt Geheim".

In 2001, I was hired by the ISN (International Security Network) as Project Manager responsible for internet search services. The ISN is an ETH Zurich institution supported by Direktion für Sicherheitspolitik of VBS (Department of Defence) in the Civile Friedensförderung Program to the tune of about 7 million francs per year (2007 data). The ISN is headed by the director of the Center for Security Studies Prof. Andreas Wenger.

Till 2006 Internet search software I was developing for use at the ISN under the name locust was praised by the ISN management. Everything changed when Prof. Wenger appointed Mr. S. M.censored to be the Head of the IT Team and later promoted him to the position of ISN General Manager. Mr. S. M.censored started a campaign of personal abuse against me which is documented here and without any explanation decided to cancel my project. First, he tried to replace my software by a commercial service, but when this failed, he outsourced new search software to a Bulgarian company at a great cost to taxpayers. The cost of development of new software was apparently hidden in other expense items. In possible violation of financial rules no tender for outsourcing was made (ETH refuses to disclose the outsourcing documents). The history of these events is documented here.

In 2007 I started to complain to ETH officials about personal abuse, misuse of public money, presenting false information to grant sponsors, physically destroying information that must be publicly available, attempts to silence complaints and an atmosphere of arbitrariness and fear that existed at the ISN.

A well-wishing ETH official advised me off-record to drop my complaint. He told me that it will take years to get an answer and nothing will be done at the end. He added that he knew of people with much heavier complaints than mine and they all achieved nothing. My lawyer also have heard from his colleagues that ETH Zurich has a reputation for being closed to complaints. Some sympathetic colleagues who grew up in Zurich told me the same.

I naively thought that written proofs of my accusations and support of substantial number of former and current colleagues will make it impossible for the ETH to ignore my complaints.

And now almost three years later I have to admit that they were right. The ETH reputation is well-deserved. I went all the way up to the ETH Senate and got only empty denials. This stonewalling is done in the most crude, primitive and cynical way.

First I complained to Prof. Wenger and Mr. Schmid from the Personnel Department. These complaints were essentially never answered.

Then I wrote complaints to GESS Department Chairman Prof. Gugerli, to ETH Zurich President Prof. Eichler and, finally, to the ETH Rat President Dr. Schiesser. It took Prof. Gugerli one day to answer, while Prof. Eichler investigation required ten days. With fifteen months investigation, Dr. Schiesser beat them by a great margin.

Every reasonable adult understands that an answer to a complaint should either accept facts and their interpretations contained in the complaint or refute them with documents and reasoning. In all the above "answers," not one of the facts was denied, not one interpretation challenged. The proper name for these "answers" is "unsubstantiated denial."

I complained that Prof. Wenger tried to appoint as a Project Manager a person who had absolutely no qualification for this position. Did it never happen or is it normal in the ETH appoint incompetent people for personal loyalty? Where is your answer Dr. Schiesser?

I complained that there was no tender for outsourcing IT projects at the ISN. Was I wrong about this or there was no tender requirement for these projects? Where is your answer, Dr. Schiesser?

Even after all my complaints, the ETH never explained the reasons for cancelling my project and spending taxpayer money for replacement. In his interview with the ETH Life, Prof. Wenger told only that it was a "systemic decision." What is "systemic decision" if not a shorthand for "it is not for lesser people like you to question my decisions?"

Much longer recital of unanswered questions is in my open letter to Prof. Eichler.

I suggest that you read my complaint to Dr. Schiesser and his answer and make your own conclusions. Does this "answer" answer my complaint, or, if not, can this lack of answer be explained by a mistake that all of us can make, or by sloppiness or is this intentional grossly immoral dishonest behaviour?

What explanation Dr. Schiesser gives for this lack of answers? Amtsgeheimnis. Amtsgeheimnis - official secrecy, seems to be the favourite word of Swiss bureaucrats. ETH refused to disclose any ISN documents and any documents related to "investigation" of my complaint. The reason for this Amtsgeheimnis? No answer. Also Amtsgeheimnis.

It is universally recognised in our society that transparency is the best way to prevent abuse and corruption. ETH own political scientists preach virtues of transparency to the world. If we search the ETH website for the words "free flow of information", we can find a document stating that "The International Relations and Security Network (ISN) is an initiative designed to promote the free flow of unclassified information..." Where? Apparently in far away lands, not here. Another document states that "Many governments share the fear that their ability to influence and govern their populations is undermined by a free flow of information." And, may I add, their ability to spend public money without too close control may be undermined too. We can also find at the ETH site a document approvingly informing that "the Mongolian government signed the Ulaanbaatar Declaration, promising support for 'an open and transparent society [which] encourages the free creation, pursuit and flow of information'." A dangerous example, how fortunate that Mongolia is so far away from the ETH.

Dr. Schiesser certainly must know that we live in open society. In our society one needs a very good and specific reason to withhold information from the public. I cannot think of any reason (when national security is not involved) to keep in secret how a grant of public money is spent, other than to cover incompetence, abuses and possibly even corruption. In any case, ETH never attempted to explain those reasons.

Dr. Schiesser in his "answer" denied my accusations of corrupt and cynical behaviour of ETH officials. During our meeting he seems to be especially offended by these accusations. To prevent misunderstanding: following The Oxford Reference Dictionary I use here the word corrupt in one of its meanings - morally depraved.

Whoever wrote the "answer" on Dr. Schiesser behalf did not notice that words corruption and cynicism appear in my complaint in the following paragraph only:

When written answer, despite repeated requests, is avoided, there can be only one reason for it - the officials know that complaints are essentially true, but they want to cover abuse and mismanagement. This behaviour is corrupt and cynical.

Some of the actions of ETH officials appear to me outright bizarre. All-pervasive secrecy, appointments of technically incompetent people for personal loyalty, threatening dissidents under the pretext that they insult the collective - all this we associate with countries like North Korea. But all of the above happened in the ETH Zurich and ETH highest management approved it! Don't believe me? Here are facts and documents.

I am not the only person who complained about abuses and mismanagement in the ISN. Journalist Nadja Pastega interviewed many former ISN staff members for her article "Mobbingvorwürfe an ETH-Institute" who who told her about "the disastrous climate" and "systematic mobbing" at the ISN. Most of these people complained to the ETH Zurich Ombudsman and as far as I know several new complaints were made after the article in Sonntag and after my complaint to the ETH Rat. Nevertheless, ETH management pretends not to know anything about these complaints. I was told on number of occasions that I am the only person complaining about Prof. Wenger. With this attitude, one may wonder how much abuse and mismanagement in the ETH is covered up.

The most sinister and bizarre aspect of the behaviour of ETH officials were persistent attempts to threaten me with the Art. 57 of the ETH Regulations. Art. 57 obliges employees to keep secret those matters which, "by their nature or according to a special provision, must be kept secret." Vague "secret by nature" in Art. 57, open to any interpretation, apparently is designed to put a threat of prosecution over any person disclosing anything about employment-related matters.

Prof. Wenger in an article in the ETH Life denied that reminding me of Art. 57 in the Vereinbarung (Agreement) he wanted me to sign, had anything to do with silencing me. You can see both documents and decide whether his denial has any credibility. If this was just an innocent friendly reminder of my obligations, as Prof. Wenger has claimed, why out of long ETH Regulations only Art. 57 was chosen to be reminded of? Moreover, I repeatedly asked Prof. Wenger to inform me what specific secrets he had in mind reminding me of Art. 57 and never got any answer.

It did not get better in the ETH higher echelons. Prof. Butellier, ETH Zurich Vice President, kindly informed me during our meeting that Swiss judges are very strict in questions of job related confidentiality. ETH Zurich President Prof. Eichler also reminded me of Art. 57 in his answer to my complaint.

Finally, before publishing the documents related to my complaint, I wrote a letter to the ETH Senate President Dr. Schiesser himself, asking him to notify me which of these documents are considered secret by the ETH. In his answer Dr. Schiesser was not able to name any, but nevertheless repeated the same threat again:

With regard to your announced intention to publish various documents, I again explicitly remind you that according to the Art. 57 PVO professional, trade and official secrecy is valid also after the termination of employment.

Interestingly, Dr. Schiesser is a prominent member of FDP, the liberal party. I am curious, what liberalism means to him? Or does he check his liberalism at the office door? Liberalism supports the freedom of speech. What meaning freedom of speech has if everything controlled by bureaucrats is secret?

It would seem that of all people professors of political science and university officials should be especially sensitive to any threat to the freedom of speech. One may think that if they nevertheless do threaten people, it would be done in some subtle ways, off the record. Not in the ETH! For ETH bureaucrats this is apparently business as usual. I had an impression that Dr. Schiesser and other ETH officials sincerely believed that there is nothing immoral in attempting to silence people with Art. 57. Another confirmation (albeit on a small scale) of the thesis of the "banality of evil," that evils executed by bureaucracy are mostly performed not by monsters, but by ordinary people who, lacking the capacity for self-reflection, uncritically accept "the way things are done" in their environment as normal.

In summary, this is how the system works according to my experience. ETH bureaucrats deny fair resolution of complaints leaving victims with no option to pursue justice other than making the misdeeds public. Then they try to scare into silence those few who still dare to protest. And, finally, if somebody is still undeterred, they claim that there must be something wrong with this person as nobody else complained.

Can actions of ETH officials described above be tolerated in an open and democratic society? Their behaviour described here is a systemic problem that goes far beyond my personal grievances. Apparently, the ETH is incapable of reforming itself unless media and politicians force ETH bureaucrats to restore norms of basic decency and return to practices normal in a democratic European society.

I hope that politicians who appoint higher ETH bureaucrats will read this and realise that their current appointees are an embarrassment to this institution.

Does atmosphere of arbitrariness, fear, impunity, lack of transparency affect the core mission of the ETH, research and teaching? In my opinion it certainly does.

I invite ETH officials to take their position over my accusations. The pages of this site are open to you.

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