¹⁸

Thursday, 15 November 2001

[Status Conference]

(Open session)

--- Upon commencing at 10.03 a.m.

[The accused entered court]

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning to the technical booth, good morning to the interpreters and to the registry staff. Good morning to the parties. Madam Registrar, would you call the case, please.

THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honour. This is case number IT-01-46-PT, the Prosecutor versus Rahim Ademi.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you very much. Mr. Ierace, could we have the appearances for the Prosecution, please.

MR. IERACE: Good morning, Your Honour. Appearing on my right is Anura Meddegoda, and on my left is Gary Garland; they are the members of the trial team in this case. And to my far right is Lakshmie Walpita, who is the case manager.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you. Can we have appearances for the Defence, please.

MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] My colleague Jadranka Slokovic-Glumac, an attorney from Zagreb, is my co-counsel, and I am Cedo Prodanovic, an attorney from Zagreb, on behalf of Mr. Ademi.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you very much. Good morning, General Ademi.

We are meeting today for a Status Conference which, as you know, ¹⁹ will be the last over which I'll have the pleasure and opportunity to preside. It's important to me, since the Chamber was going to rule on the preliminary motion raised by the Defence for defects in the form of the indictment, to plan for a meeting in order to set the directions for your future work and to facilitate the Chamber's work, that is, the Chamber which will be responsible for the case, taking into account the fact that we are going to have some downtime and therefore we've got to give you some directions to follow for your work in this case before the Chamber is reconstituted.

On the 12th of November 2001, the Chamber ordered the Prosecutor to file a new version of the indictment within the -- within 14 days, that is, by 26 November at the latest, and decided that the Defence would then have 14 days at the most in order to file a preliminary motion. This obligation for the Prosecutor, in my opinion, should not be reason for suspending your discussions in respect of the commencement of the trial or, more specifically, as part of Pre-Trial management in this case which I wish to see as efficient as possible. And for that reason, I thought that I might present you with a provisional work plan. In order to facilitate your work and that of the Trial Chamber, I think that there are at least three measures that can be taken for the time being. First of all, the parties should meet to discuss the indictment together. Second, I suggest that the Prosecutor prepare a pre-trial brief, a summary provisional brief, for the 10th of December. And lastly, I wish for the parties to meet with the Senior Legal Officer of the Chamber as often as that officer deems it necessary and, in any ²⁰ case, on the 5th of December, 2001, in order to identify, inter alia, the points of agreement and disagreement without prejudice, of course, to the preliminary motion that any -- any preliminary motions the Defence would raise in the meantime.

In order to give a framework for these three suggestions, I should mention that the purpose of pre-trial discussions is to prepare for the commencement of the trial. For me, this is the key to a fair and expeditious trial which, as you know, was one of the rights of the accused. If you look at Rule 65 ter, the purpose of the pre-trial management are very clear and we can see them exactly in the trial in three times. The first time or the first moment are the agreements in law and fact that the parties have got to reach. I would even say that the essential objective of this first measure is to reach an agreement on disagreement. The disagreement would then constitute the objective of the trial or the purpose of the trial.

Having set that objective, the second step comes about, that is, to determine what is the evidence. First, it seems to me, the witnesses would come. And when we speak of witnesses, we are speaking of the witnesses or the evidence which is necessary for the purposes of the trial. I not only speak of witnesses, we are also speaking about several ways of testifying. That is, witnesses who must come to the courtroom before the judges, that is to speak in person; the witnesses who can testify through a presiding officer for the two Rule 71 of our Rules; and the witnesses who can come pursuant to Rule 92 bis, the expert witnesses; and possibly those witnesses who are going to come into the courtroom ²¹ through videolink. These are the various ways that one can testify. And these various ways must be considered in respect of the agreement on the disagreement.

Subsequently, there will be a third step to take, which has to do with the exhibits. For this, we must define -- that is, the Prosecutor must define right now that, without going to -- go through the pre-trial phase of the Prosecution's case, but after the presentation of the Prosecutor's case, everything which has just been said also applies to the pre-trial preparation of the Defence.

As you know, for the Prosecutor's pre-trial phase, there is a contribution from the Defence and that contribution, as you see, is to be found in Rule 65 ter (F). That is that the Defence must say in general terms what is the -- what the -- the nature of the accused's defence, the matters with which the accused takes issue, and in each of the cases, the reason why the accused takes issue with it.

I go back to the third point or the third step of these proceedings -- this procedure in pre-trial management to say that it is vital that, in respect of the list of exhibits which the Prosecutor intends to submit, it is absolutely necessary for the Defence to state which exhibits -- of which exhibit it is contesting the authenticity. That is, if we have that position from the Defence, it is possible immediately that the Prosecutor and then, at the proper time, the Defence would prepare a file with the cooperation of the Registry, identifying the exhibits which in principle are to be admitted by the Chamber. I do not want to dwell on this point, but so that the parties can ²² work together, I wish to tell you that so long as there is no challenge to any of the exhibits, and pursuant to our Rules, the exhibit will then be admitted because we are part of a system which is controlled by holistic vision of documents, that is, the probative value of each document, which must be seen within the totality of all the exhibits. That is, we are not here in a strictly common law system in which there is a domestic vision, that is, that each document, before being admitted, must be evaluated in respect of its probative value. Because that's only when one has a jury system made up of people who are not professional judges. In this Tribunal, there are professional judges and therefore it is not necessary to go into all of those aspects before documents are admitted into evidence.

And so here are a few of the ideas that I would like to give you so that you can work:

Speaking of documents, there is another point which we discussed in other cases, and I see Mr. Ierace here. We discussed this issue in another case. One must be careful about translation problems. You know that the accused has the right to have the documents in his own language. There are decisions in this Tribunal which specify those terms. We have Rule 66, which states that the accused has the right to have the documents in his own language, and the Rule states two situations. I think from the point of view of economising on the resources of the Tribunal, the resources of the international community which have been given to us in order to render justice, we've got to be prudent, without prejudicing the rights of the accused and without prejudicing the equitable nature of the ²³ trial. Taking into account as well the fact that the accused has the right to have a rapid trial, and that frequently in the interests of the administration of justice, the trial must be expeditious. So this balance must always be found between two aspects of the trial; that is, fairness and expeditiousness.

Frequently, as you know, it isn't possible to be expeditious without having a fair trial, but where that is possible, we have the obligation to do so and I say this both to the Prosecution and to the Defence. And I believe that it is quite possible for the Prosecutor to make a selection of those documents that are really essential for the trial, and then, after having sorted through them, to ask the translation service to translate the documents. It may also happen - I am repeating myself here for Mr. Ierace - it may be that the Prosecutor might have an exhibit which is a book, but in the book, he plans to use only two pages. Perhaps we might find ourselves in a situation where it is not necessary to overtax the translation service. That's how I see this. Let me explain myself further. Either Prosecution counsel or Defence counsel, in their teams there is always a member of the team -- in any case, the OTP always has the opportunity of having people who read, write and understand B/C/S, just as for that Defence counsel always has a member in its team which speaks one of the languages of the Tribunal. In respect of the Defence, as you know, Defence counsel, on an exceptional basis, can be accepted even if he does not speak one of the official languages of the Tribunal so long as his or her co-counsel speaks one of the Tribunal's languages. That means that in the Defence team there is ²⁴ always one member who speaks one of the Tribunal's languages. If the Prosecutor is going to use two pages in that book, which might be 300 pages long, one might wonder why the whole book -- why translate the two pages? Because the two pages could be put here into -- in the courtroom, put on the ELMO, and the interpreters in the booths can translate those pages, especially if the two pages are given in advance to the interpreters in order to facilitate their work.

And you could say, yes, I have two pages but I need to have the total context. That's not a problem. There is always a member among counsel to find someone who can read the book and then inform the person who is going to examine or cross-examine the witness in order to know what the context is. This is a practical way of getting around a difficulty, and I do not see how that could prejudice the fair nature of the trial. I also do not see why the Tribunal has to translate books. What I'm saying about books applies as well to other documents, and this is just an idea I'm throwing out. If the parties agree in respect of this practice, there are no problems. But if we want to set up obstacles, there is always a way to do that. I leave you with these suggestions which must be seen on a case-by-case basis. There really are situations where, of course, the translation must be made, but what I'm saying is that a selection has to be made of what is essential really for the trial and what could be not be translated. And that way one would save on resources.

One must pay attention to something else as well. Speaking of documents - and this might be a general direction to follow in your work - ²⁵ to avoid duplication of documents. We have had cases in several of our cases when the Prosecutor discloses documents to the Defence, the Prosecutor identifies them, the Chamber admits them, but at some point, the Defence presents the documents which will then be given a reference number which represents additional work for the registry and for ourselves and overtaxes the archives of the Tribunal unnecessarily, so one must be careful and avoid duplication, and to be careful as well, both Prosecution and Defence, careful not to ask for translation of documents which have already been translated in another case and are lying in some corner of the Prosecutor's Office or even in the Defence offices. These are very practical directions that I'm giving you but which could enormously facilitate the work in several cases, and spare the resources which have been given to us by the international community. Before going to another matter, what I've just said to you in general terms represent the objectives of pre-trial management and the objectives which must really preside over our work plan. As you know, the Pre-Trial Judge must approve or provide, I should say suggest, a work plan to the parties and you know that the Senior Legal Officer has a role to play in the execution of that plan.

So a plan has to be carried out and the attorneys and the legal officer can meet and, if necessary, any adjustments can be made to the working plan, and it is up to the Pre-Trial Judge to assess the need and order such changes. I should like to say that we need to change a little bit the mentality that prevailed over the pre-trial stage at the Tribunal. A period of two years or one year or more for the pre-trial can ²⁶ no longer be accepted. Even for more complex cases, I don't think that the pre-trial stage can last longer than six months. And why? Because, as you know, the latest reform envisaging ad litem Judges really does proceed from the understanding that the pre-trial stage should be expeditious. It also envisages the participation of the legal officer, to give more time to the judges for more specifically judiciary matters. Therefore, as you understand well, it is not possible to invite ad litem Judges to -- who have been engaged from different countries, to carry out their duties without organising the work a little bit for them. Therefore, the pre-trial stage has to be completed as soon as possible, and that is one of the preconditions for being able to organise and promote the activities of the Tribunal.

And also, as you know, one has to bear in mind that this Tribunal is an ad hoc Tribunal, which means it has a very specific task to accomplish. It is not a permanent court of justice. So all of us have to bear in mind that we have to complete our task as soon as possible, because the international community will be able also to judge our activities.

Before going on to the plan and programme, I should like to give the floor to the parties so that they may respond to this vision that I have described. Briefly perhaps, because I took too long, and I apologise. Mr. Ierace, your comments?

MR. IERACE: Your Honour, because of my involvement in the Galic trial, I'm well aware of Your Honour's view as to how the difficulties with translation can be overcome and, indeed, Your Honour's proposals will ²⁷ be acted upon in this case as they are in the Galic case. Your Honour's timetable essentially involves three propositions: Firstly, that the parties should meet to discuss the indictment together. In relation to that proposal, I can inform Your Honour that there have been some discussions between Mr. Prodanovic and myself and members of my team, and I can report that there is a very cooperative atmosphere and I anticipate that the discussions will distil in clear terms the issues of dispute between the parties. Those discussions are ongoing. There have been some communications between us and I anticipate that there will be some discussions in the near future which will focus on material matters, central material matters.

Your Honour's second proposition was that the Prosecutor prepare a provisional pre-trial brief by the 10th of December, which I note is a little over three weeks hence. Your Honour is well aware of my personal obligations in the Galic trial and over that same period, and in addition to that, as a result of the Trial Chamber's, Pre-Trial Chamber's recent decision, the Prosecution has to attend to the amendment of the indictment in this case by the 26th of November, and then by the same date, by the 10th of December, the Defence has the opportunity to respond. Your Honour, with that in mind, I would respectfully submit that an additional period of time to prepare the pre-trial brief would be very gratefully received by the Prosecution. There is an additional factor which has to do with the composition of my trial team in both the trial of Galic and in case. And that team composition issue is directly relevant to the preparation of the provisional pre-trial brief. In other ^{28BLANK PAGE 29} words, there is a staff change, and that staff change comes at a critical time at any event without this additional responsibility. Your Honour, this is a case where the accused has been in custody already for three and a half months, which at least is significantly less than many other cases before the Tribunal. It is also not a case where the indictment was issued years before but rather earlier this year. I do not mean at all by reminding Your Honour of those dates to suggest that there would be any tardiness on the part of the Prosecution's preparation. I simply would be very grateful for an additional short period so as to ensure that the provisional Prosecution pre-trial brief not only contains all of the relevant material but also best facilitates further discussions with the Defence. I would want that document to be a quality document and to be a proper foundation for further discussions with the Defence. Of course, Your Honour, we are also coming up to Christmas and a number of UN, United Nations, holidays and that's a further difficulty which we have. I would not want my comments to be interpreted as a plea for a lengthy further postponement of this task but simply a request that the pressure, if I can put it that way, of the Galic trial not coincide with a pressure point in this trial as well. Perhaps that could be slightly removed.

So, Your Honour, that is my response in relation to what Your Honour has offered. I have, of course, some information in relation to the matters which are set out in the agenda for today's Status Conference but I will give that information when it's convenient to Your Honour. Thank you. ³⁰

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes. Before giving the floor to Mr. Prodanovic, allow me to comment briefly on your remarks, Mr. Ierace. Fortunately, I have before me Mr. Meddegoda and we worked together when there was no pre-trial. Now, here I am before you, Mr. Ierace, and we worked together in the pre-trial for General Galic, and you will remember well that our experience, the experience of this Chamber, indicated that to have a pre-trial brief as envisaged by 65 ter, that is, after we complete Rule 66, 68 and rule on all the preliminary motions, the first task of the Pre-Trial Judge is to request that the Prosecutor file a pre-trial brief. We have always taken it that this pre-trial brief should be the outcome, the product, of numerous contacts between the parties, specifically to see the points of fact and law that they agree on and disagree on. As you know, on the basis of our joint efforts, we have found a kind of compromise between having a provisional pre-trial brief and the final pre-trial brief. Why? Because we felt that under the circumstances, to have a provisional pre-trial brief of the Prosecutor would facilitate exchanges between the parties. The Prosecutor would be placed in a position to be obliged - in quotation marks, of course - to define what is the nature of its case, to put it that way, and the Defence would be placed in a position to really be able to enter into a dialogue and discuss these points. And it is as a result of that that we have come to the point when we feel it is very useful to have, even if it may not be a quality pre-trial brief, some kind of a draft, a provisional pre-trial brief in order to facilitate all these communications with the Defence, because we have established a code of communication between the parties so ³¹ that the parties begin to understand what it is they have to discuss on the basis of this draft. So we are making a kind of compromise between a provisional pre-trial brief, a draft, as an instrument of work, to begin along the way of exchanges between parties which will eventually lead to the final pre-trial brief.

And that applies both to the Defence when your Pre-Trial stage comes. You can limit yourself to 50 pages or so because this is the work that develops. It is the product of selective and thought-out efforts. And this will produce really good quality pre-trial briefs. At this stage on the part of the Prosecution; tomorrow on the part of the Defence.

So having made those comments, I think it is always a good idea to have this working instrument, even in provisional form, in a draft form, because I think it is truly important when it comes to discussions with the Defence, with the other party.

Thank you, Mr. Ierace, for your response. I should now like to give the floor to Mr. Prodanovic for his response. You have the floor, Mr. Prodanovic.

MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour Mr. President, the Defence is aware of certain difficulties that the Prosecution is faced with regarding time, because -- and deadlines, because the Prosecution is dealing with another case at the same time, but I must recall that Mr. Ademi has been in detention already for three and a half months and the first aim of the Defence is to do everything it is able, and that includes contacts with the Prosecution, in a spirit of cooperation, so as ³² to set a trial date as soon as possible. And to that end, we are more than willing to communicate with the Office of the Prosecutor as much as possible, because it is our common objective for this trial to begin as soon as possible.

Regarding the schedules, we will respect your instructions, Your Honour, as decided by you as the Pre-Trial Judge.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Prodanovic. Having shared with you this overall vision, let us now see how we can translate that vision into a concrete work plan.

There are at least a few dates that we must bear in mind in view of the fact that the Pre-Trial Judge that will be designated by the Chamber will follow on this plan, or complement it, together with you. But I think that between the 17th and the 24th of November, that within that time period, we will have a designated Pre-Trial Judge. So this is a date that should be borne in mind.

Then there is the 5th of December, and I suggest to you the 5th of December, but it can be -- one can be flexible regarding that date and that flexibility will depend on your contacts with the legal officer, but on the 5th of December, there should be a meeting between the parties and the legal officer of the Chamber to specify a certain -- certain points of that work plan.

What will be the agenda for that meeting? First of all, to have a discussion of the indictment with a view to establishing points of agreement or disagreement based on a critical reading of the indictment. Why am I making you -- making this suggestion? Our experience in another ³³ case has been that the parties met to jointly read through the indictment. It seems a simple thing and it is indeed simple but it is very useful to have this joint reading of the indictment. Why? Because then one can see which of the points one may agree on and which one disagrees on. A second item of that agenda would be a general discussion -- we are still talking about general discussions -- on witnesses. And specifically to what extent Rule 71 will be used, that is, deposition statements, video conference, and also 92 bis Rule. This discussion could be an in-depth discussion because one has to bear in mind that the timetable of trials in the Tribunal may not allow General Ademi's trial to begin shortly.

I insist on the importance of considering which witnesses can be taken by the legal -- by depositions under Rule 71. We have had an experience when, for the first time in the history of this Tribunal, we heard at least 20, I think 21, witnesses through the presiding officer before the beginning of the trial. So you see how one can use the time even before the trial begins. So it is quite possible to have an anticipated beginning of the trial to hear Prosecution witnesses, which the Prosecutor believes can testify through a presiding officer as prescribed by Rule 71. So I draw your attention to the possibility of organising these depositions. Our experience has been that we saved an enormous amount of time for the trial itself, for we heard at least 21 witnesses under the provisions of Rule 71, that is, deposition witnesses. A third point of -- third item for the agenda for this meeting could be a general discussion on the list of exhibits and questions of ³⁴ translation. This concern that I have shared with you with respect to translations, in my view, should be present from the very beginning, which means that the Prosecutor now, and the Defence later, should consider which documents they really need to have translated, and if the parties meet to discuss which are the essential exhibits, the essential documents, on the basis of mutual agreement, one can save a lot of time and a lot of resources.

A fourth point of the agenda for this meeting, which is still preliminary, of course, and very general, would be to address all other matters such as the question of the scheduling of the pre-trial. That is to say, the parties at this meeting could discuss the timetable that they would like to propose to the Pre-Trial Judge who will be coming. And then the legal officer of the Chamber would be in a position to report to the Judge or inform the Judge, the Pre-Trial Judge, of the suggestions of the parties and that would give the Pre-Trial Judge an opportunity to schedule the case and to plan the trial date. For that meeting, I think that would be sufficient as the working agenda.

There is a third date, in my opinion, that could be important and that is the 10th of December 2001, which would be the deadline for filing preliminary motions. That is to say, if the Defence files preliminary motions, that would be the deadline for doing it. The Chamber will rule on any preliminary motions and then the Pre-Trial Judge will be able to work, having received your contributions.

Before I go on to the next point, I would again like to hear the reactions of the parties. Mr. Ierace, have you any comments to make with ³⁵ respect to what I have just said?

MR. IERACE: No, Your Honour. There is no comment that I would make in relation to those proposed items on the agenda. Thank you.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Prodanovic?

MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I have no comments either regarding your suggestions.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well, then. In the days to come, the new Chamber needs to have the opportunity to familiarise itself with this case, and that is why I wanted to give you some very general guidelines for you to be able to continue working on this case up to the point when the new Trial Chamber is designated and can take over. I still think that we should envisage for January, 2002, other meetings with the legal officer of the Chamber with the emphasis on the possible points of agreement. The preparation by the Prosecutor of a provisional pre-trial brief, as close as possible to the final version, but truly a provisional one in draft form, as I have already said, and of course, the Pre-Trial Judge will set a date for a pre-trial conference in due course.

Before adjourning, I should like to give the floor to General Ademi. Could you please rise, General Ademi. We would like to hear any comments that you may have on conditions of detention and your health.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Your Honour, good morning. I wish to greet everyone in this courtroom. As far as conditions are concerned, they are just ordinary, as in any detention unit. As for my health, it's in order too. I have no complaints to make. ³⁶

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well. You may be seated, General.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Before rising, I think there is a point that I forgot to make and that is to place the emphasis on the question of disclosure of exhibits. How do we stand, Mr. Ierace, regarding the disclosure of documents to the Defence under Rule 66?

MR. IERACE: Your Honour, in relation to Rule 66(A)(i), disclosure was completed on the 24th of August of this year. In relation to part (ii) of that Rule, so far the Prosecution has disclosed approximately 50 witness statements. I anticipate that there will be an additional 50 witness statements, thus making a total of 100. There are, in addition, some approximately 200 documents to be disclosed, as well as 15 videotapes, 600 photographs, 175 artefacts or forensic materials such as reports, post mortem reports, DNA reports and the like. And finally, approximately 2.000 to 3.000 additional documents which the Prosecution is in the process of obtaining from sources within Croatia. Thank you, Your Honour.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Prodanovic, do you have any comment?

MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] The Defence can confirm that we have received quite a large amount of material supporting the indictment, and as far as our rights provided in Rule 66(B) are concerned, the Defence will give its stand after receiving the amended indictment.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well, thank you very ³⁷ much. I might take advantage of this moment to make a suggestion to you which you might take under consideration. In respect of the exhumation reports, and any expert reports, I share the experience that -- with you that we had in other cases. The exhumation reports always present a translation problem, so the parties in another case agreed to have the translation only of the conclusions of several reports, forensic reports. This is a suggestion which I am throwing out to you because from the respect of work, the translation work, this represents thousands of pages to be translated but in fact the real usefulness of the report is to be found in the conclusion. So you might consider, when dealing with the translation problem of documents, you might consider whether it really is necessary and important for the Defence to have the -- have all the thousands of pages translated. I think it's important for you because, in the end, we have a summary and you don't -- you're not really going to read so many pages, but that's just a suggestion I'm giving you. The other suggestion which I might also give to you has to do with the expert reports. You know that Rule 94 bis at some point says that if the party receiving -- or the party, if it accepts the expert's statement, it may be admitted, but if the opposing party -- excuse me. The party can accept or request for a cross-examination of the expert witness. What we have done in other cases is that it might be more appropriate and more useful for the party not accepting the report be able to produce a counter-opinion, and all of this could be done in writing and the judges, of course, can read the reports.

Or there is another possibility, which is that if the party does ³⁸ not accept the report, that party would state what is the point of disagreement and the reasons why there is a disagreement and the Chamber could admit the report into the -- as part of the examination-in-chief and the party not accepting would have the opportunity of cross-examining the witness but only in respect of the points of disagreement within a limited amount of time. We have done this in other cases and I can tell you that we saved a great deal of resources and time.

So I leave you with that suggestion in respect of practical ways of doing things and saying that this does not prejudice the rights of the Defence, especially if there is good cooperation between the parties. Since I have mentioned the word "cooperation," let me tell you that cooperating does not mean abandoning the -- one's interests or not defending one's interests, whether they be of the -- of the Prosecution or the Defence. It simply means that in a management strategy, it means that there is a win-win strategy. Perhaps you're familiar with that expression. If you have a competitive strategy, we are going to have a result in which one party wins and the other party loses. In a cooperative strategy, one can win more and the parties could both win, and so I'm not here in order to do the work of the Defence, but Defence positioning itself in the position to be able to say that the Prosecutor must prove everything and I'm just waiting for the Prosecutor to bring its proof, that might be a position taken as in certain football teams. You know, in football teams, there are those who play defensively and they are the ones who usually lose. I don't want to interfere in the work of the parties. I never do that. But I am sharing with you this position that ^{39BLANK PAGE 40} is a cooperative strategy between the parties is always desirable because, in the end, everybody will win, and those who win, as always -- always more than if only one party wins with the other party losing. I don't want to give you any organisational lessons or any management lessons here, I simply want to share with you some of my experience and to leave it with you.

This is the time to hope that -- to wish you good work. I will follow your work from afar, with a great deal of pleasure and interest, and I hope that you can produce justice. Therefore, I say now, good morning to all of you.

--- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned at 10.59 a.m.