Quote:Myanmar military offensive leaves 14 dead, 300 ethnic Karen flee to Thailand
The Associated PressPublished: March 10, 2007

BANGKOK, Thailand: Clashes between the Myanmar military and ethnic Karen rebels killed 14 people and forced at least 300 civilians to flee into neighboring Thailand, a rebel spokesman and a Thai military official said Saturday.

The Myanmar military and the pro-junta Democratic Karen Buddhist Army launched attacks Thursday against the Karen National Union, said David Thaw, a spokesman in Thailand for the KNU, the largest group representing the Karen.

Thaw said 10 Myanmar troops and four rebel soldiers were killed in the clashes. He said the military was "trying to pressure the KNU into returning to the negotiating table."

Col. Phanu Wacharopas, a Thai military commander in charge of border districts in Tak province, said 300 people had fled across the border into Thailand.

Phanu said most of the refugees were staying in a Buddhist monastery in Umphang district near the border. He said the fighting had stopped and the refugees would probably return home soon.

A spokesman for the junta in Myanmar, also known as Burma, was not immediately available for comment.

The KNU has been fighting for half a century for greater autonomy from Myanmar's central government.

Cease-fire talks between the KNU and the government broke down in 2004, and the Myanmar army launched a major offensive in Karen State in eastern Myanmar in 2005. Since then, it has repeatedly tried to bring KNU members to the bargaining table in an effort to split the group.

The Thailand Burma Border Consortium, the main aid agency caring for tens of thousands of refugees along the Thai-Myanmar frontier, estimates that in 2006 alone the violence forced 82,000 people to leave their homes.