BEIJING, Jan 27, 1997 (Reuter) - China has issued a call to crack down on independence activities in the restive region of Tibet by exposing the exiled Dalai Lama as a ``fake'' religious leader and pushing ahead with a cleanup of monasteries.

``The splittist activities of the Dalai Lama clique are not only a major reason in damaging social stability but also are the biggest impediment to the development and reform of our region,'' the Tibet Daily quoted a senior regional party official as telling a meeting on legal work in the Himalayan region.

Regional Deputy Communist Party secretary Gui Jinlong told the meeting that officials should step up their work to eliminate the influence of the Dalai Lama in the Buddhist region, the newspaper reported in an edition available in Beijing Monday.

Officials had gained many victories in their crackdown on crime and unrest in Tibet last year, but police needed to strike harder at those in the region who wanted independence, he said.

Guo stressed three main tasks for 1997 to ensure stability in the region, which has been rocked by several anti-Chinese riots in recent years.

The first was to deepen criticism of the Dalai Lama, he said, referring to the region's exiled god-king who has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his peaceful campaign for more autonomy for his homeland but who is vilified by Beijing.

``(We must) thoroughly expose his pretense of being a 'religious leader' so that all the masses and monks and nuns in the region are clear that the Dalai (Lama) is a political subversive and a religious sham,'' Guo was quoted as saying.

``(They) should be clear that the Dalai is a traitor to the motherland, the scum of the people, the chief criminal of religion, and then they will voluntarily oppose splittism and uphold stability,'' Guo said.

China blames pro-independence unrest in Tibet on the Dalai Lama, who is revered by most Tibetans as their spiritual and temporal leader and who fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising aginst Communist rule.

Guo called on legal officials in Tibet to beef up their struggle against infiltration, in a hint that anti-Chinese feelings among Tibetans had spread among officials appointed by Beijing.

Thirdly, he called for an intensification of instruction about patriotism in Tibet's monasteries and temples.

He urged legal workers in the region to take part in rectification work and cleanups of monasteries to raise vigilance in the region against the ``splittists'' Beijing's codeword for people it says are trying to divide Tibet from China.

Anti-Chinese unrest has erupted sporadically in Tibet since communist troops marched into the region in 1950, with monks and nuns at the forefront of the pro-independence movement.