While it is easy to understand why the Sri Lankan government is determined to capitalize on its military advantage and crush the surrounded rebel Tamil Tigers unless they surrender unconditionally, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake is wrong. In the eyes of the international community, he runs the risk of bearing a very heavy burden of blame for needless slaughter among the 120,000 civilians trapped with the remaining Tigers. In the eyes of many Tamils, he could be laying the bitter foundations for future conflict that will ultimately render the present imminent victory meaningless.

One government justification for rejecting international proposals for talks to get the insurgents to surrender is ostensibly valid. Past history has shown that the minute the military pressure is taken off the Tigers, they prolong negotiations while they regroup and strengthen their defenses. The Tiger leadership is simply not to be trusted. What is more, if they themselves had cared about the civilians around them, the Tigers would have forbidden them to flee with them. There is, therefore, justice in Colombo’s argument that these luckless people are being used as human shields.

However, even accepting the likely consequences of talks, the government seems to be going out of its way to keep the Tigers fighting. Their offer of an amnesty to any rank and file rebel who surrenders does not appear sincere. This is because in the same breath Colombo is promising that Tiger military supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran and his commanders will be “tried and hanged”. Given the highly militarized and harshly disciplined nature of the Tigers’ rule in the past, this would seem to guarantee that the rebels would keep on resisting. Nor should it be forgotten that these fighters are sufficiently indoctrinated and deluded to provide suicide bombers and every insurgent carries a cyanide capsule to bite on if captured.

It seems, therefore, that the government wants its conquest of the Tigers’ remaining 35 square mile sliver of territory to be absolute. And no doubt Prabhakaran, if he cannot manage to slip away, will want to die an heroic death along with his supporters, fighting back against overwhelming odds and claim his place in some future historic Tamil epic. But it really does not have to be this way. If at its moment of triumph after years of destructive struggle, which has so far cost over 70,000 lives, the Sri Lankan government could show magnanimity and give international negotiators one last chance to go in and try to get the Tigers to surrender, it would redound to its credit, both in the world and among many Tamils. If the last ditch-negotiations fail or if the Tigers are seen once again to be up to their old delaying tactics, there will be general, if reluctant, acceptance that the military mopping up of the enclave must proceed. But at least the responsibility for further tragic bloodshed will be laid firmly at the feet of the Tiger leadership. Without such a cease-fire the risk for Colombo is that it’s short-term victory will turn out to be a damaging long-term defeat.