Kate Beddall, Jakarta, – Indonesian security forces fired rubber bullets to disperse around 700 pro-independence demonstrators in the remote province of Irian Jaya on Monday, wounding 24 people, the official Antara news agency said. Local police chief Hotman Siagian was quoted as saying 180 people had been detained by police after the protest on Biak island, off the northern coast of Irian Jaya, was broken up.

Antara said the protesters had been demonstrating since July 2, flying flags representing the Free Papua separatist movement. Irian Jaya occupies the western half of New Guinea island and comprises 22 percent of Indonesia's total land area. Pro-independence protests have been mounting in the province since the resignation of former president Suharto and his replacement by President B.J. Habibie on May 21 amid Indonesia's worst economic and political crisis in decades.

On Friday, after two days of protests in the territory's capital Jayapura, a police intelligence officer was attacked and beaten by pro-independence demonstrators and two students were shot and wounded by security forces, Antara said. The police officer died of his wounds on Saturday.

Around 500 students blockaded the campus of Negeri Cenderawasih University just outside Jayapura in the wake of Friday's violence but dispersed on Sunday evening after a four-hour meeting with University Rector Frans Wospakrik, an official in the rector's office told Reuters by telephone.

Wospakrik offered condolences to the officer's family and apologised to two journalists from Jakarta who were attacked by students during the disturbance, Antara said.

Unrest has also been reported in the town of Sorong on Irian Jaya's western coast, where demonstrators demanding independence on Thursday smashed windows in a local government building.