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Would they be targeted because they're Christians?

Christians usually don't have the same protection that a monk would have, simply because we are Christian and they are Buddhist. But for the monks who rally and demonstrate, there is still the moral respect that they have. There is a tradition that grants them some protections, and they enjoyed that in the midst of their rally. But we as Christians, who are seen as secondary citizens, do not have that [protection]. Even if there's no rally taking place, the mere fact that we meet in the church, that we teach classes in the Bible school—they're already nervous about that, and they come back just to interfere, to know what's going on.

In fact, during this rally, I have been in constant communication with my assistant, and he told me that officials come to the school three or four times a day, perhaps to spy on whether we participated in the rally or are just staying at home. There is a constant monitoring of Christians.

Have you heard about any Christians who have undergone raids or questioning?

Yes. Since I do not have their permission, I don't think I can mention their names, but there are a couple pastors who have been taken, partly because they visited their folks and the government may be suspicious of what they're doing.

Another thing that happens in our own experience happened on the 17th of August—the local officials came to our school at about 1:30 in the morning and knocked the door and began to check who was sleeping in the school. Now, in Burma, we have to register with local officials every four days how many people are sleeping and in whose house and why. So, [officials] came with that registration and they began to count how many people were sleeping in the school. And by God's providence, the list and the people who were sleeping in the school matched, so there's nothing [the officials] could do. But I have heard a lot of reports that they knock from house to house and do that. Especially to Christians.

Has anyone disappeared?

I don't know of any Christians who have disappeared.

Is there a lot of internal displacement in Burma?

At this point, I am sure that those people who are really rallying are having to flee for their lives. Because right now the government is doing the follow-up work. Now that they have all their cameras and have all the pictures of people who demonstrated. That happened back in 1988. It was months before the government tracked down all the people who were on the streets rallying.

The same thing happens even now: that they track down people who have been rallying. There are a lot of reports going around that at nighttime, the government would raid houses. [Officials] would not ask questions, but they would just take [the people who allegedly participated in rallies], and so far they've never come back.

How does this crackdown compare to the one in 1988?

I am not sure; it might even get worse than the 1988 event. I think they are working hard to do as much tracking down as possible.

What happened to the church in 1988?

Before then the church was quite free, but from then on, the church began to have more restrictions, so I do not know if there is any specific attention given to the church. I think they always see the church as connected to the Western world. And that's when they began to be suspicious of the churches.

What is the Christian population in Burma?

There has been some discussion of Christian leaders as to what percentage are actually Christian. More conservative studies would say 6% but a more open study would say 10%. I'm in the more middle way where I would say in my best opinion with all the travels that I've had, that roughly 8% are Christians. Half of that 8% would be mainline denominations, and the rest would be evangelical Christians. There is a small section of Roman Catholics. I think they compose 2%, maybe. So evangelical Christians are not that many.

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October (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51