“Tonight, for the next minute, let our silence represent our sadness, our anger, and our solidarity,” the International Aids Society president, Françoise Barre-Sinoussi, said, officially opening the Aids 2014 symposium in Melbourne on Sunday night.
She was one of several high-profile delegates to deliver powerful speeches in tribute to the six conference-bound researchers and advocates killed when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine.
Delegates from the organisations representing those killed gathered behind her on stage as silence filled the room of 12,000 people attending the opening ceremony.
Missing from among them were the former International Aids Society president and professor of medicine Joep Lange; his partner, the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development public health official Jacqueline van Tongeren; the HIV lobbyists Pim de Kuijer and Martine de Schutter; the director of support at the Female Health Company, Lucie van Mens; and the World Health Organisation media coordinator Glenn Thomas.
All were killed when MH17 was shot down.
They were travelling because of their dedication to bring an end to Aids, Barre-Sinoussi said, vowing to honour their commitment “and keep them in our hearts over the next week”.
A French virologist who won a Nobel prize for her fundamental work in discovering HIV, Barre-Sinoussi told conference delegates that she wished the conference were opening in happier circumstances.
“The extent of the loss of our colleagues and friends is still hard for me to comprehend or express,” she said.
“We grieve alongside all of those throughout the world who have lost friends and family in this senseless tragedy. But we strongly believe that all of us being here for the next week to discuss to debate, and to learn is indeed what our colleagues who are no longer with us would have wanted. We dedicate Aids 2014 to them.”
A letter of support and condolence to the friends, families and colleagues of those killed on board MH17 was read out by the Dutch ambassador for sexual and reproductive health and HIV/Aids, Lambert Grijins. Condolence books circulated throughout the ceremony and will do so until the conference closes.
Other tributes to those killed were paid by speakers throughout the ceremony, with many attendees wearing red remembrance ribbons on their shirts.
The retired Australian high court judge Michael Kirby delivered the Jonathan Mann memorial lecture. Mann was a doctor who crusaded for human rights and Aids, who died with his wife and a plane full of passengers off St John’s, Newfoundland, in 1998.
“He too was on his way to a conference on Aids,” Kirby said. “He too had precious gifts to impart. It was a terrible loss to us and to the world. His memory drives us on.”
“When I was asked to give this opening plenary weeks ago I little thought that the plane crash that caused those deaths would be multiplied and magnified, this time by deliberate conduct of human beings.
“That it would kill delegates to our conference, and many other peaceful travellers, going about their lives with no harm in their hearts to others.
“How cruel and self-centred these murders appear to be. How reckless and outrageous to make such means available to zealots. How much more pain do we have to face in the world of Aids before we are through this bleak experience.”
Kirby said there was no doubt that irrational cruelty would remain a companion on the journey to fight HIV and Aids and its stigma.
“It requires us to remember the past president of the International Aids Society, Joep Lange and his wife.
“To think of all the other delegates who expected to be sitting here with us in this hall at this occasion. They devoted themselves to scientific research, to patient care, to law reform and human rights. Would that we could turn the clock back. Would that we could laugh, and think, and dream, and struggle shoulder to shoulder with them here tonight. Yet we cannot.”
The local co-chair of the Aids 2014 symposium, Sharon Lewin, said she was speaking in “great sadness and shock”.
“I was a friend and great admirer of both Joep Lange and Jaqueline van Tongeren and know they would want us all to continue the great work they were both so passionate about – seeing an end to HIV,” she said.
The conference will continue until Friday and flags on government buildings across Victoria will fly at half-mast until then.
World leaders, scientists and organisations will sign the Aids 2014 Melbourne Declaration throughout the week.