Jakarta – Students in Makassar, the capital of Indonesia's South Sulawesi province set fire to a bus after a minister described their demand for an independent state as "half-hearted," reports said Saturday.

Regional Autonomy Minister Ryaas Rasyid said on the private televison SCTV Friday that the students' demand for South Sulawesi to break away from Indonesia was not serious because their action had yet to claim any victims, the Media Indonesia newspaper said.

Angered by the minister's statement, students at the Makassar State University ambushed a public bus passing their campus and set it on fire, Media said.

A student leader was quoted as saying that "because of the deliberate instigation, the students wanted to show that the demand is for real."

There were no casualties in the incident. A Makassar police official said one student had been arrested.

Students in the province have staged independence rallies following the failure of former president B.J. Habibie to win a new term on office. Habibie, a native of South Sulawesi, was forced to drop out of the presidential race a day before the October 20 election.

The students have charged Jakarta's political elite, most of them Javanese, with failing to heed the aspirations of people in the eastern part of Indonesia. The protests came less than two months after East Timor voted for independence.