Timika – Two people have been killed and 18 wounded as rivals clashed with arrows and stones over the creation of a new province on Indonesia's remote Papua island, witnesses and police said on Monday.

Clashes began over the weekend outside official buildings in Timika, seat of the newly created government of Central Irian Jaya province, 3,400 km east of Jakarta, Timika Police Chief Paulus Waterpauw told Reuters. "I am in the middle of fighting. They are using arrows right now," he said by telephone.

Indonesia recently carved up Papua into three provinces – West Irian Jaya, Central Irian Jaya and Papua – a move critics see as an effort by the government to weaken separatist aspirations. Central Irian Jaya is the newest province.

The police chief said a man died after being shot by an arrow on Monday. One person died on Sunday after being hit by a stone. He gave no further details.

Waterpauw said 18 people had been wounded in the clashes, two of whom were in critical condition. "Two are going under surgery, the others have been hospitalised," he said.

Media said police fired warning shots on Sunday in an effort to disperse crowds. A witness said sporadic scuffles, involving some 500-800 supporters and opponents of the creation of a new province, using stones and arrows, occurred in the streets of Timika on Monday. Police said the two people killed were from each side of the conflict.

The leader of a pro-independence group deplored the violence. "We see that Jakarta through its plans is trying to make the Papuans fight each other," Tom Beanal, leader of The Papua Presidium Council, told Reuters. "So the Papuans fight each other and that is the signal for the military to come and shoot people, that's what we see."

In 2001, Jakarta passed laws giving Papua more autonomy and a bigger share of revenues from oil fields in a bid to lessen separatist sentiment.

"I think there is and has been a debate in Jakarta about whether to move forward with a genuine offer of autonomy or not," Ed McWilliams, a former US State Department official who was political counsellor with the US embassy in Jakarta from 1996-99, told Reuters before the Timika incident. "I think this plan to divide into three is an effort by some of those who oppose real autonomy."

Indonesia's interior affairs minister said the government was trying to defuse the conflict. "We asked for the conflicting groups to cool down," Hari Sabarno told reporters.

[Reporting by Dean Yates, Muklis Ali and Harry Suhartono.]