By Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING, Nov 14 (Reuter) - China will defrock radical monks in Tibet in a crackdown that could last up to five years in a bid to uproot the influence of the Dalai Lama in his Himalayan homeland, a Chinese propaganda official said on Thursday.

"Lamas who are comparatively reactionary will be told to return to secular life," the propaganda official said by telephone from Tibet's capital, Lhasa.

"Reorganisation of monasteries... will consist mainly of ideological education... It could continue for three to five years," said the official, who declined to identify himself.

China has vowed to curb the influence of Buddhism and the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled god-king, in the region, saying religion must conform to socialism instead of the other way round.

Atheist China views religion as feudal superstition though it tolerates a limited degree of religious freedom.

"Religious culture... not only hampers social development and economic development, but also stops people becoming more civilised," the official Tibet Daily said in an edition seen in Beijing on Thursday.

The newspaper complained last week that monks in Tibet outnumbered students and more money was spent on monasteries than on Communist Party buildings.

"Monasteries will not be closed... (but) work teams will enter and be stationed at monasteries," the propaganda official said.

For several months, China has been stationing "work teams" in Tibetan monasteries. The teams force monks into study sessions on becoming more "patriotic" and into signing pledges supporting Chinese authorities.

"Those aspects of religion which fail to adapt to social development and impede social progress will be eliminated... to prevent the Dalai Lama from using religion to engage in splittist activities," the official said.

There were 1,787 temples in Tibet by early 1996, with 46,000 monks and nuns exceeding the number of high school students in the region, the Tibet Daily has said.

The newspaper has complained that healthy young Tibetans were entering the clergy and living off alms instead of working.

China has shut many temples in Tibet in recent years to try to eradicate the influence of the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against communist rule.

The Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his non-violent campaign for autonomy for his homeland, but Beijing views international support for Tibet's holiest man as a Western plot to split China and contain its development.

Beijing says the Dalai Lama is a political activist and not a purely religious figure.

"The spiritual realm is the main battlefield of our struggle against the Dalai Lama clique," the Tibet Daily said.

The newspaper said last week some temples in Tibet were controlled by supporters of the Dalai Lama and had become the headquarters and venue of separatist forces at home and abroad to engage in separatist activities.

It blamed monks and nuns for creating disturbances and sabotaging stability since 1987. Tibet has been rocked by repeated anti-Chinese protests that Beijing charges are stirred up by the Dalai Lama's supporters.

REUTER