Three policemen in Indonesia?s remote Papua province were killed yesterday in clashes with protesters demanding the closure of a giant mine run by US firm Freeport-McMoran Cooper & Gold Inc, police said.

Papuan police spokesman Kartono Wangsadisastra said students from the province?s main university pelted policemen with stones to stop them from opening a roadblock to an airport that serves provincial capital Jayapura.

?Three officers have died. They suffered from injuries from punches and stones,? he said, adding police tried to break up the protest by firing teargas and rubber bullets.

On Wednesday, one person was shot by an arrow hours after anti-Freeport protesters tried to storm a five-star hotel in Timika, the nearest town to Freeport?s Grasberg mine.

There have been sporadic protests against the Grasberg mine in recent weeks, both in Papua and Jakarta. A road blockade by mostly illegal miners shut down operations for four days last month.

The protesters have been demanding the closure of the lucrative mine, believed to have the world?s third-largest copper reserves and one of the biggest gold deposits.

The Freeport operation has been a frequent source of controversy in Indonesia, with issues ranging from its impact on the environment and the share of revenue going to Papuans and the legality of payments to Indonesian security forces who help guard the site.

Illegal miners often enter mining areas in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago that is the world?s fourth most populous country with huge metal deposits such as copper, gold and tin.