Jakarta – Indonesian demonstrators rallied for a third consecutive day Wednesday in front of the offices of a US mining giant demanding that it cease operations in Papua province.

About 400 police ringed the high-rise building housing PT Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of New Orleans-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX), where 100 demonstrators assembled. Unlike previous days, there were no scuffles.

Protesters claim that the company's Grasberg mine – which reportedly contains the largest gold deposits in the world – has not brought any benefits to local residents during its 40 years of operations. They also accuse Freeport of backing Indonesia's security forces in crackdowns against the local population.

"Freeport has to be closed because the environment has been damaged and many locals were massacred just because of its presence in Papua," said Marten Goo, one of the protesters.

Environmental groups accuse the multinational company of causing an ecological disaster by dumping tailings directly into once-pristine rivers that flow into the Arafura Sea.

Smaller protests were held in two other Indonesian towns.

In Makassar, on Sulawesi island, several dozen students carrying a "Close Freeport" sign gathered at a monument marking Indonesia's takeover of Papua from the Dutch in the 1960s. A similar demonstration was held in the city of Bandung, southeast of Jakarta.

Last week, Freeport had to halt operations at the mine in Papua - Indonesia's most remote province, politically and geographically - after 500 locals set up barricades on a road leading to the site. The desperately poor villagers were demanding the right to sift through waste rock dumped by the mine and sell tiny amounts of gold and copper, a practice the company says is illegal.

Operations resumed Saturday following negotiations involving local ethnic and religious leaders.