Top Tibet official Raidi (Eds: one name) lashed out at the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner as a "splittist" and a "loyal tool used by anti-China forces."

"The Dalai Lama is not willing to negotiate. He is afraid to negotiate," Raidi told a news conference during a meeting of the National People's Congress, or parliament, in Beijing.

President Jiang Zemin surprised Beijing's critics in June last year during a visit to China by U.S. President Bill Clinton by offering talks with the Dalai Lama, but only on condition that he recognise Tibet and Taiwan as parts of China.

Since then, the Dalai Lama has said that behind-the-scenes attempts to open channels of communication with Beijing have broken down.

The Dalai Lama speaks of autonomy, not independence, for the Himalayan region.

Wednesday marks the 40th anniversary of an armed separatist uprising in Tibet during which thousands of Tibetans died battling Communist Chinese troops.

The Dalai Lama and most of his ministers fled during the fighting on March 17 and established a "government-in-exile" in India.

In the run-up to the anniversary, China has intensified a propaganda campaign to emphasise improved living conditions for Tibet's 2.5 million people under Chinese Communist rule.

The aim is to contrast life in modern Tibet -- with highways, electricity, schools and consumer goods -- with backwardness, slavery and feudalism under the Dalai Lama's rule.

Raidi said the Dalai Lama "has not done a single good thing for the Tibetan people."

"He is the chief representative of a feudal-serfdom system. Under his rule, the people were reduced to the status of animals," Raidi said.

"The Dalai Lama is changeable. Sometimes he says he is willing to negotiate, sometimes he says he is not willing," Raidi said. "He has two faces."

Critics of China's rule over Tibet say Beijing has systematically destroyed Tibetan culture and tortured monks and nuns who support the Dalai Lama. They say waves of Chinese immigrants have turned the capital, Lhasa, into a drab, Chinese-looking city.

Chinese statistics paint a different picture, showing life expectancy surging over the past 40 years -- to 66 years from 35 years -- grain output increasing and 81.3 percent of school age children attending classes.

This week the official Xinhua news agency described the Dalai Lama as "the major source for social disturbances in Tibet as well as the biggest obstacle to the establishment of the normal order of Tibetan Buddhism."

Monday marked the 10th anniversary of Beijing's imposition of martial law in Lhasa following three days of anti-Chinese riots.

An estimated 50 Tibetans were shot dead by police during the mayhem, and martial law remained in effect for more than a year, until May 1, 1990.

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Last updated: 9-Mar-99