Jakarta – Police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of protestors outside the offices of Freeport Indonesia in the capital Jakarta, as demonstrators demanded the closure of its mine in Papua.

About 300 protestors clashed with security personnel and several police and protestors were injured, an AFP photographer at the scene said. "Close down Freeport!" the protestors shouted.

Glass panels at the security post outside the building were smashed, but the protestors did not enter the lobby of the building, which houses the offices of the local unit of US-based giant Freeport-McMoRan on a higher floor.

The move followed the peaceful ending at the weekend of a four-day blockade of a road near Freeport's mine in Indonesia's remote Papua, after the company said it would allow local miners to continue prospecting through its waste.

The blockade by hundreds of the miners brought production at the world's largest gold and copper mine to a standstill.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had directed his energy minister to coordinate with the security minister to resolve the dispute, fearing a loss of national income if the mine stayed shut.

One of the leaders of Monday's protest accused the company of abusing human rights, fostering corruption and damaging the environment. Some protestors also demanded that non-local soldiers and police officers be withdrawn from Papua.

About a dozen Papuan students last week vandalised the building in a pre-dawn attack that led to nine of them being arrested.

In Abepura near Papua's capital of Jayapura, about 100 people took to the streets also demanding Freeport's closure, Papua police spokesman Kartono Wangsadisastra told AFP. The march disrupted traffic near Jayapura's airport but after negotiations the protestors took their protest to the provincial parliament, Kartono said. No violence was reported, he added.

Freeport is one of the top sources of revenue for Indonesia's government. But it has repeatedly come under the spotlight following disputes with local residents, allegations of human rights violations and queries about its payments to the military to provide security.