"...Planning this year to hold its first national and local elections since 1990, the Myanmar government has prepared itself in many ways, including, as Amnesty International?s findings indicate, by repressing ethnic minority political opponents and activists. While these human rights violations certainly preceded the February 2008 announcement that elections would be held—as the late 2007 crackdown on the Saffron Revolution showed—the coming elections have given the government new resolve in repressing political dissent in all of Myanmar?s seven ethnic minority states and among its ethnic minority peoples. This repression has included arbitrary arrests and detention; torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; unfair trials; rape; extrajudicial killings; forced labour; violations of freedom of expression, assembly, association, and religion; intimidation and harassment; and discrimination. This repression of political opponents and activists has also run completely contrary to the Myanmar government?s repeated claims since 2004, to be embarking and continuing on a ‘Roadmap to Democracy? and increasing the level of political participation in the country. With almost no exception, authorities and officials have enjoyed impunity for their violations. The repression of political opponents and activists has resulted in the violation of ethnic minorities? human rights, and the violation of international human rights and humanitarian law: Myanmar is bound by its legal obligations under the Conventions on the Rights of the Child and on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; the 1949 Geneva Conventions; and customary international law. It is also obliged, as a member of the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to uphold the provisions of both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ASEAN Charter..."