THE NATION: Australian kidnapped on

[suriya@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Australian kidnapped on Thai-Burma border: military

posted at 18:00 hrs (Bangkok time) 

MAE SOT, Thailand, March 29 -- A pro-Yangon guerrilla force has abducted an Australian man
and a Thai woman as thousands of troops mass along the Myanmar side of the volatile border with
Thailand, border sources said. 

Local Thai military commanders said the man -- identified by Australian authorities as 28-year-old
Nick Cheesman -- and an unidentified Thai woman were last seen taking photographs near a
refugee camp in northwest Thailand's Tak province on Friday. 

The reports came as up to 2,000 Myanmar troops with heavy weapons massed near the border
ahead of an expected flare-up in hostilities between rival factions of Myanmar's (Burma's) Karen
ethnic minority, border sources said. 

Thai army officers said Cheesman had asked permission to visit a Buddhist monument near the
border, in an area troubled by several deadly raids on Karen refugee camps in recent weeks. 

Instead of going to the monument, he and at least one Thai woman walked to the Moei river
marking the border, where one report said they were seized at gunpoint by members of the
pro-Myanmar Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). 

''We are investigating the situation but unluckily no one saw the incident,'' the officer said. 

Australian Volunteers Abroad chief executive Bill Armstrong said in Sydney the abduction was not
a ''hostage situation'' and initial reports said the DKBA troops were treating their prisoners well. 

''Reports received indicate that they are well and are not being mistreated. There is no suggestion
that this is a hostage situation,'' he said, adding the two had been taken for questioning. 

Armstrong said Cheesman, who spoke fluent Karen, had been working in Thailand with
international organisation Burma Issues for five years. 

Aid workers in the area said negotiations were underway between international agencies, Thai
officials and the DKBA. 

''The Thai officials have been assured that the two people are being treated well and they will be
allowed to return to Thailand after a short period of time,'' sources at the border said. 

Cheesman had gone to the river on Friday to photograph a DKBA village on the other bank which
was attacked by rival Karen National Union (KNU) forces last week, a source who knew the
Australian said. 

''We understand from witnesses that they had guns pointed at them from a distance and they were
asked to cross the river and talk to the soldiers, which they did,'' the source said. 

''It's a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.'' (AFP)