MOSTAR OFFICIAL: DIVING COMPETITION ABUSED TO PROMOTE INTOLERANCE

MOSTAR, Aug 26 (Hina) - The deputy mayor of the southern Bosnian town of Mostar has accused the organisers of Sunday's diving competition at the town's Old Bridge over the Neretva river of abusing the event to promote intolerance and disregard for diversity. #L# Beslic has objected that before the start of the competition tribute was paid to the "killed shekhids and members of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina", and warned that members of other peoples, not only the Bosniaks, had been killed while defending Mostar. "The construction of the Old Bridge was promoted as a symbol of reconciliation and since the dives were made from the newly- reconstructed arc, paying tribute to all the divers who were killed in that unfortunate war, not only members of one people's army, would have been appropriate," Beslic said in a statement for the media on Tuesday. The Old Bridge, reconstructed last Friday, had been destroyed by Croat artillery in the 1993 Croat-Muslim war. (hina) rml