Jakarta - Indonesian police said they clashed yesterday with knife-wielding separatist protesters who had raised a rebel flag in the restive province of Irian Jaya, leaving 30 demonstrators wounded.
An Irian Jaya police spokesman, Lieut Col Faisal Nasir, said police had fired warning shots as they evicted around 50 protesters from a church in the town of Timika, near the vast Freeport copper and gold mine. He denied a report by a human rights group that police fired at the protesters, saying those injured were hurt in the melee as they tried to flee. Earlier, the Irian Jaya police chief, Brig-Gen Silvanus Wenas, said the police involved had not carried guns.