By Rathindra Kuruwita

Everyone knows about James Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes. He is at the centre of a criminal web ‘with a thousand threads and he knows precisely how each and every single one of them dances.’ Or Shredder, from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, who is behind a wave of juvenile delinquent crime wave. People remember these characters and this narrative that there is a Mr. Big who is behind all the things that they dislike.

But when you read the real crime news and there is no Mister Big. It’s a million little muggers and thugs, with no organization at all. Nobody puts that in a script because it’s too depressing. I feel that is the same reason why a lot of people from the media circle and the social justice warrior circle like to believe that Gotabaya Rajapaksa or military intelligence operatives is/are behind Aava group, a bunch of petty criminals from Jaffna.

Rajitha drops the ball

Last week during the Cabinet Press Briefing Co-Cabinet Spokesman Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne dropped a verbal bomb. I like Rajitha in general, he rants and says things without thinking and badmouthed journalists. He makes getting up early to go to Cabinet Press Briefings worth it.

Anyway, commenting on the activities of the Aava Group in Jaffna he said that the Aava Group was created a few years ago with the knowledge of former Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa. But he did not say this out of the blue. After the Aava Group, a bunch of gangsters from Jaffna, created quite a bit of controversy in the last few weeks, there was this push, by certain sections of the media, politicians and social justice warriors, to create a link between the Aava Group and military intelligence. And by stating there is a link between the Aava Group and, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Rajitha made a lot of people happy.

Gangsters with an attitude

Over the years, there have been sporadic reports of Aava Group activities, often assaults a la Tamil movie style, and what the law enforcement authorities have been trying to do about them, i.e. arrests of gang members with weapons. But until this incident no one had brought up the military intelligence link.
As I was saying they were quite big circa 2013 and 14, but after a series of arrests they went into a hiatus only to return after the death of two Jaffna university students last month. After the deaths, media reported that Aava Group assaulted two policemen in civil clothing. It was said that they also pasted posters and distributed leaflets threatening the law enforcement authorities of future assaults.

The simple explanation of Aava is that they are a bunch of petty criminals in Jaffna, probably in their late teens and early 20s trying to emulate how gangsters in Kollywood movies behave. They are also trying to score some points by pretending to be Tamil nationalists. There are petty criminals all over the world. You don’t need military intelligence or Gotabaya Rajapaksa to create them.

But you know what mainstream journalists are like, they want a sensational story. This is doubly true of the foreign correspondents in Sri Lanka. Thus a number of journalists have suggested that the Aava Group was a creation of the military intelligence and a journalist attached to a foreign news service told Minister of Law and Order Sagala Ratnayake late last month that the only gangsters on motorcycles in Jaffna are military intelligence operatives. And last week they got what they wanted when Senaratne said that a number of military officials created this organization to harass LTTE sympathizers, journalists and other activists.

Of course, the next day Governor of the Northern Province Reginald Cooray told media that there is no evidence to suggest that there is a link between the Aava Group and the military. This was followed by another refutation by the State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene who said that the Aava is not linked to the Security Forces or any political party. But I doubt the media, politicians and social justice warriors would care about what Cooray or Wijewardene have to say. They have found their story which serves their diverse interests.

Finding Mr. Big

I am not going to dismiss Senaratne’s allegations just because Cooray and Wijewardene denied them. And I do believe that Gotabaya is quite capable of creating a paramilitary group to harass political opponents in the North. If we examine what he did from 2010 to 2014, I think it’s clear that he would have done anything to stay in power. It is also common practice that governments use marginal/oppressed groups in the community to counter insurgencies. Rajitha says that the recruits for Aava were without LTTE or diaspora connections, i.e. those without access to power through social or political connections who are ideal for counter insurgency. For example, the Hmong people were used by the French and the Americans against the Viet Kong/Ming in Vietnam. The Amazonian rainforest tribes were used by the successive Colombian Government against FARC. I can go on forever because the governments use such groups.
But I have two major reservations about believing that Aava was created and is controlled by a murky military intelligence figure.

1. Gotabaya Rajapaksa did empower certain groups to harass political opponents but usually the man was/is not too bright and the groups he created and their actions backfired, i.e. because he empowered Bodu Bala Sena Mahinda lost the Muslim vote. While he could have controlled a group like Aava and prevented captured recruits from divulging his alleged involvement when he was the Defence Secretary, I doubt he can ensure that now. And as far as I know none of the arrested Aava Group members have claimed they have handlers from the military intelligence.

2. If Rajitha knew that Aava is linked to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, why didn’t he tell anything about till last week? Better yet why did he not get the Police to investigate this alleged connection? If it’s possible to make a connection, that will be the end of Gotabaya’s credibility among those who support him.

But as far as I can see no one is raising these issues because, the story of a Mr. Big who can be blamed for everything is convenient for everyone. And next week I will continue this line of thought and explain why the narrative of Mr. Big serves the interests of a lot of stakeholders.

Courtesy:Ceylon Today