Three wounded in Irian protest

JAKARTA (JP): An intelligence officer and two students were injured when a proindependence demonstration on Cendrawasih University campus in the Irian Jaya capital of Jayapura turned violent yesterday, a media report said.

The Antara news agency said law student Steven Suripatty was shot in the head and was in critical condition in the hospital. A second student, Korina Onim, was treated for a bullet wound.

The reports said the intelligence officer was badly wounded after being mobbed by students who were angered by the use of force to disperse demonstrators.

The protest, in which students staged a free-speech forum, turned violent when protesters beat up a person they believed was an undercover officer.

Antara quoted Jayapura military chief Col. Josef Samuel as saying he regretted the shooting and apologized to a crowd of 200 students from the university.

Josef said the authorities would investigate the students' claim that the military used violence to break up the protest.

The incident followed two days of simmering unrest in Jayapura and other parts of the vast province where a low-level Free Papua (OPM) separatist insurgency has been underway since 1969.

The agency said four vehicles and a bank branch were badly damaged by stone-throwing demonstrators in Jayapura on Thursday.

Demonstrators demanding independence also smashed windows at a local government building in Sorong, 1,080 kilometers northwest of Jayapura on Thursday. (byg)