BEIJING, July 23 (AFP) - Beijing's top communist party official in Tibet has accused the Dalai Lama's followers of twisting language and education issues to support their separatist agenda, according to a report seen here Wednesday.

"The Dalai clique and splittists are using culture and education as an opening to attack us," Chen Kuiyuan, secretary of the Tibet party committee, was quoted as saying in the Tibet Daily's July 14 edition.

"They try to use language and culture as an excuse to create ethnic conflict. Their aim is to separate the Tibetan nationality from the rest of (China's) nationalities ... and to make the so-called 'Tibetan culture' opposed to the so-called 'Han culture'," he said.

Chinese authorities consider the Dalai Lama who has headed a Tibetan government-in-exile in India since 1959 -- the number-one separatist threat to the Himalayan region.

The spiritual leader has criticised China's Tibet policies of causing "some kind of cultural genocide" and has warned the region's people and traditions are under threat.

Beijing-encouraged migration by members of the Chinese Han majority has gradually transformed Tibet's cities into communities with little traditional Tibetan flavour.

Educational policies limiting the use of Tibetan language to the first years of primary school have also been accused of diluting indigenous culture.

Chen also warned that Tibetan Buddhism must be kept apart from politics.

The separatists want to "rebuild the feudal slave system in which politics and religion was united in Tibet," he said, referring to centuries past, when the Dalai Lama served as both spiritual and temporal leader to the region.

China claims its rule has brought Tibetans greater social equality and economic prosperity.

"It is the sacred responsibility for people of all ethnic groups to strengthen the country's unity. We are determined despite hostile forces' attempt to sow dissension," he said.

Beijing considers Tibetans just one of China's more than 50 ethnic minorities.

Chinese soldiers took control of Tibet in 1951. Although Chinese emperors had a say in Tibetan affairs for centuries, the region previously enjoyed a distinct way of life, religion, language and culture.

The Dalai Lama fled the region in 1959 following an abortive anti-Chinese uprising. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989 for his efforts to promote Tibetan self-determination.