sentences:  Although a continuous presence of the Interior Ministry troops maintained a precarious peace in the region, outbursts of violence did occur, and the Soviet government made no progress toward solving any of the inter-ethnic problems.The Georgians suspected the attack on their university was intentionally staged by the Abkhaz secessionists in order to provoke a large-scale violence that would prompt Moscow to declare a martial law in the region, thus depriving the government in Tbilisi of any control over the autonomous structures in Abkhazia.At the same time, they accused the Soviet government of manipulating ethnic issues to curb Georgia's otherwise irrepressible independence movement.