by Caspar Leighton

   ABIDJAN, Dec 8 (AFP) - Claims Friday by the Ivorian opposition that
Alassane Ouattara's personal secretary died overnight after being beaten by
paramilitaries came at the end of a week of persecution of northerners and
immigrants.
   The interim spokesman for Ouattara's Rally of Republicans (RDR), Ali
Keita,
told AFP that Babou Coulibaly was arrested by the paramilitary gendarmes on
Wednesday during a pre-electoral crackdown on the opposition after leaving
Ouattara's house in Abidjan's chic Cocody district.
   "As he passed before the residence of President Laurent Gbagbo, gendarmes
guarding it stopped him, checked his papers, and when they saw he had a
Dioula
name (from the north of the country), several of them began to beat him."
   Keita said that Coulibaly was then taken to a police camp where he was
beaten in the head, and then "dropped off" unconscious at the Cocody
hospital.
   "When they saw he was going to die, they transported him to the Avicenne
clinic," a less-well equipped facility, the spokesman said.
   This latest death is just one high-profile example in a week of
systematic
persecution of northerners and immigrants by the Ivorian security forces.
   Bloody clashes rocked Abidjan on Monday and Tuesday as supporters of
Ouattara, a former prime minister from the north, protested at a Supreme
Court
ruling barring him from standing in Sunday's legislative elections.
   Ouattara himself is currently in Paris.
   Dozens died in a brutal repression by the military and security forces
and
mopping-up operations continued for a couple of days after. While officials
put the toll at around 20, the RDR and human rights groups have said at
least
30 have died and many more have been injured.
   Witnesses have throughout the week told how those with northern names
have
been singled out for extortion, beatings and sometimes death.
   President Laurent Gbagbo has been insisting that the turmoil afflicting
Ivory Coast is a purely political problem, but people on the street --
northerners and immigrants -- tell a very different story.
   "On Tuesday, around 15 gendarmes came into the courtyard and for no
apparent reason, opened fire. A bullet hit my younger brother in the temple
and he died instantly," said Sekou Diarra a 29 year-old of Malian origin.
   "The gendarmes said 'you foreigners, it's you who support Alassane
Ouattara, we are going to exterminate all of you'," said Bema Traore, from
Burkina Faso.
   "I really don't know what is going on. We are poor here and these people
(the gendarmes) come here not only to extort money from us, but to kill us
as
well," Traore said.
    The latest wave of violence follows bloody clashes in October between
Gbagbo supporters and suspected Ouattara supporters or northerners, after
the
Muslim opposition leader was also barred from standing in a presidential
poll.
   Gbagbo, who comes from the largely Christian south of the country and
heads
the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), was the only politician of any weight
allowed
to stand in that election against then military ruler General Robert Guei.
   Tagged as a socialist, Gbagbo played the nationalist card during his
election campaign and declared on taking up the presidency that the country
"no longer needed immigrants".
   crl/nb
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