CASE STUDIES 47 Figure 6.1. Equipment on display at the opening of a new police force administrative building in Yerevan on 21 June 2014. Sources: <http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/850/mg23.jpg> and <http://forum.hye club.com/showthread.php/11485-Nagorno-Karabagh-Military-Balance-Between-Armeniaamp-Azerbaijan/page1073>. Further information on the event can be found at <http://www.police.am/en/news/view/%D5%B8%D5%A621614.html>. Image credit: © panorama.am significant loss of life and many injuries. As part of the Soviet response to the demonstrations, significant quantities of riot control agents, purported to be CS and CN gas, were used. A Parliamentary Commission inquiry into the events that unfolded on 9 April 1989 found that the use of riot control agents had contributed to the deaths of demonstrators. The Soviet response to the protests arguably contributed to the emergence of an independent Georgia, with the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, on the second anniversary of the 9 April 1989 Tragedy. Since then, Georgia has gravitated more strongly to the West, in particular to the USA and the EU. Under President Saakashvili, who was elected on a democratic mandate as part of the Rose Revolution, the alignment westwards continued at pace with a corresponding cooling in the already frosty relationship with Russia. This Western alignment was also reflected in the equipment observed being deployed by Georgian police forces against demonstrations in 2007, 2009 and 2011 against corruption and what was perceived as increasing authoritarianism by Saakashvili’s administration. During these demonstrations, demonstrators were met by riot police using a variety of systems, including long-range acoustic weapons, tear gas and a variety of launched kinetic-impact weapons, including the FN 303 system. A HRW report published in the wake of the 2007 protests documented the use of riot control agents in confined spaces, the firing of rubber bullets at close range at fleeing protestors, and the deployment and use of water cannons and acoustic weapons. The report states: Georgian law-enforcement officers resorted too quickly to the use of force, including simultaneous use of canisters of tear gas and rubber bullets, without fully exhausting