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 _____________________________________________________________________________________ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------