Jakarta – Indonesian police arrested 19 separatists and shot and injured one of them Monday after they hoisted their flag in front of a district parliament building in Irian Jaya province, a report said.

The state Antara news agency said police opened fire, wounding one separatist in the neck, when the group resisted efforts to haul down the flag in the district of Sorong.

The separatist flag, hoisted at 5am local time, had flown for one hour before police tried to pull it down and faced resistance from the separatists, Antara said. Antara said before the incident the rebels had reportedly killed a man for allegedly refusing to join the flag-raising protest.

District police in Sorong declined to confirm the shooting or the alleged killing, but said the incident occurred in front of the the city hall, not the local parliament building as reported by Antara.

The Free Papua Movement has been fighting for an independent Melanesian state, West Papua, since the former Dutch colony of West New Guinea became an Indonesian province in 1963. The United Nations recognized Indonesian sovereignty over Irian Jaya in 1969.

Separatist calls have been on the rise in Irian Jaya since the iron-fisted rule of former Indonesian president Suharto ended in May after a series of bloody street protests.

The last incident of a separatist flag raising was reported from the capital of Jayapura on July 1. Some 200 people were reportedly involved in that incident.

[On July 7, AFP reported that police had arrested a woman suspected of organising the flag raising protest. Yacomina Isir, the head of the Irian Jaya students' association, was arrested on while paying a homage to a dead relative in the town of Sorong. Police claim that she was "...unable to deny her involvement in separatist flag-hoisting" - James Balowski.]