No one knows this better than Burma’s Christians. As I have told you repeatedly, the plight of our Burmese brethren has been desperate. You have learned about a pattern of persecution that includes ethnic cleansing of Christian minority groups, the destruction of villages, forced conversions, and even rape and murder.

All of this is part of the junta’s attempt “to create a uniform society in which the race and language is Burmese and the only accepted religion is Buddhism.”

For the most part, the mainstream media have ignored that story. In fact, most people in the West do not even know that Burma has a substantial Christian population. For them, human rights in Burma is about protesting Buddhist monks, not suffering Christians.

Of course, cyclone Nagris did not make such distinctions, and we ought not to, either. We ought to be at the forefront of alleviating the suffering of the Burmese people. But at the same time, we ought to point out to the world that while cyclones do not discriminate between Buddhists and Christians, this junta does.

And our nation ought to be mobilizing world opinion to bring down this oppressive regime.