The people of Crimea were mainly pro-Russian. In January 2014 the Sevastopol city council on the peninsula had called for the formation of a people’s militia, to ensure the strong defence of the city from what they called ‘extremism’ emanating from Kiev. Now concern about what was going on in the country’s capital began to manifest itself in demonstrations against the new interim Ukrainian government, but soon the pro-Russian protests in Crimea started to rapidly escalate.
Pro-Russian protesters gathered in front of Sevastopol’s city hall chanting, ‘Russia! Russia!’ Anataly Mareta, head of a Cossack militia in Sevastopol, claimed that extremists had seized power in Kiev: ‘We must defend Crimea. Russia must help us with that.’ The head of the city administration in Sevastopol quit amid the turmoil, and protesters replaced a Ukrainian flag in front of the city hall building with a Russian one.
In the chaos and confusion, 82-year-old former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called for unity. ‘The political turmoil in Ukraine looks like a real mess, but it is important that the country holds together in the battle for influence between Russia and the West,’ he said.
Days later Viktor Yanukovych suddenly resurfaced, making his first public appearance since vanishing. Appearing not at all defeated, he surprised friend and foe with the words: ‘If a president hasn’t resigned, if he hasn’t been impeached, and if he is alive—and you see that I am alive—then he remains the president. I intend to continue fighting for the future of Ukraine against those who use fear and terror to gain control of the country.’ The press conference with Yanukovych was held in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.
Chapter 7
17 July 2014
AIDS researcher Joseph (Joep) Lange had boarded MH17 on 17 July 2014 together with his colleague and partner Jacqueline van Tongeren. The couple were heading for an AIDS conference in Melbourne being held that coming Sunday, an event organised by the International AIDS Society every two years and always held in a different country. The International AIDS Conference was the largest conference on any global health issue in the world and brought the leading AIDS and HIV scientists and doctors together, providing a unique forum on the subject. The single transfer and stopover for Joep and Jacqueline on their way to Melbourne would be in Kuala Lumpur, where a second plane would take them to their final destination.
Lange had spent quite a lot of time in the air lately, flying around the world. He was known as one of the world’s leading AIDS researchers, a man who spoke at important meetings held on every continent. At the beginning of his career in the 1980s, in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, the young doctor had led international research on the clinical evolution of the HIV infection, and in the nineties he was instrumental in the development of anti-retroviral therapy. His ambitions, however, were not limited to furthering scientific knowledge. As ever more drugs came onto the market to lengthen the life expectancy of those infected by the disease, Joep made it his mission to widen access to the drugs in developing countries, fighting to improve HIV/AIDS care in the world’s poorest communities. One of the first clinics he opened was in the Myanmar capital, Rangoon.
Back in the 1980s, AIDS had been considered an illness with little prospect or hope of being cured for those infected. The prognosis for a patient at that time was usually grim. Colleagues often warned Lange about tackling AIDS: it wouldn’t boost his career and in the long run his efforts would get him nowhere, certainly not up any notable medical ladder anyway. If he valued his career as a medical specialist, he would be better off choosing a more promising field. Lange refused to listen to his colleagues’ advice. He wasn’t in any way interested in fame and fortune: he was interested in making people well again and easing their pain. But first and foremost he wanted to find a cure for this disease that was killing millions of people, not only in rich Western countries but also in the poorest countries in the world.
Over time Lange proved the sceptics wrong. Not many doctors were interested in AIDS during those first years of the discovery of the cause of the illness, the HIV virus, so if a lone doctor worked hard in the field he soon acquired a degree of standing. For many years Joep Lange worked in Africa for the World Health Organization (WHO). HIV and AIDS were running rampant on that continent and it was there that his first ideas about finding a solution for the catastrophe surfaced. His work was often dismissed as unimportant and he could hardly contain his anger at times when journalists had the gall to criticise what he was doing. When one of them sneered at the relatively small number of people he was able to help, his annoyed answer was: ‘If I can save a few thousand people in Africa, I wouldn’t call that trivial, although I agree that it should be millions.’
Lange was not only a great virologist, he was also the driving force in the war against AIDS and a superb diplomat. Always good at talking about money, he was able to attract finance to his projects by approaching the rich and famous, who often donated generously to the cause. His charmingly informal manner got him what he wanted. Many were stupefied by the funding and public awareness he was often able to raise; he appeared to have the dual gifts of charm and persuasion.
There was however one great downside to his work: Lange missed out on a lot of his children’s lives. With his former wife, Heleen Stok, he had fathered five children, and he had been absent for a large part of their lives. They were now pretty much grown up, the youngest being seventeen years old.
Lange had met his current partner, 64-year-old Jacqueline, in the course of his work. He had known her for years. Lange, the AIDS scientist, and Jacqueline, the AIDS nurse, shared a common goal. Since the early eighties they had both been highly involved in AIDS research. It had taken a while for the two of them to become involved romantically. The attractive and charming Jacqueline worked as head of communications for Joep Lange’s Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development, a job that fitted her like a glove. As a team they envisioned a world where access to proper and affordable medical care for each and every person would be considered a right and not an exception.
Joep and Jacqueline were not the only ones heading for the AIDS conference. Lucie van Mens, director of support at the Female Health Company, and WHO media coordinator Glenn Thomas had boarded the plane with them.
For years Lucie had striven to educate prostitutes on the subject of sexual health. Creating websites where prostitutes, their pimps as well as medical professionals came together to exchange or gather information, Lucie and her team had found that approaching men, women and professionals through the internet was a very effective way of getting all the parties to talk due to its anonymity.
Lucie van Mens had been instrumental in finding new and effective ways of approaching this vulnerable target group. In 2005 she had become head of Stop AIDS Now!, a program that educated teenagers about AIDS. The enormous impact that AIDS was having on the lives of so many girls and women worldwide, and the small amount being done to turn the tide, infuriated her. Her priority became making sure that women themselves were able to organise protection for sexually transmitted diseases and were not dependent on others for their sexual safety. It was vital that women took responsibility for their own sexual health.
Forty-nine-year-old Glenneth Thomas was also going to the conference. Originally from Blackpool, Thomas lived and worked in Geneva as a press officer for WHO, which was based there. He’d been to a lot of places but never to Australia, so he was really looking forward to this trip. Luckily the football season was over because he hated to miss a match when the Tangerines, the Blackpool Football Club, played. Although he lived in Geneva, Glenn made time to attend the matches as often as he could, hopping on a plane to England.