GENEVA, Aug 25 (AFP) - Unless China opens negotiations aimed at granting genuine autonomy to Tibet, the alternative could be violence, an independent mission said here Monday.

"There is an imperative need for the Chinese government to sit down together with the Tibetan government-in-exile to find a solution to the Tibetan problem," Cees Flinterman, former head of the Netherlands delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission said.

"This (call) is not new but it should be repeated again because the alternative (to negotiations) could be violence. There are many young Tibetans who want to see something happening now."

Flinterman, a professor of international law, headed an unofficial fact-finding mission to Tibet at the end of April to assess whether Tibet fit the bill as a colonized society.

The team, comprising also Netherlands Parliament member Josephine Verspaget and Irish Senator David Norris, spent six days in Tibet before travelling to Nepal and Dharamsala in northern India where the exiled Dalai Lama lives.

In Tibet on tourist visas, the trio culled their information mainly from Lhasa, nearby monasteries and Tsethang, a town about 140 kilometres (85 miles) away.

Flinterman, who unveiled a report written by mission members on Monday, called Tibet probably the largest remaining colony in the world.

"Tibet is a society of fear. There is no freedom in Tibet and the Tibetans are suffocating," Flinterman told a briefing.

The report urged non-partisan countries such as Norway to host autonomy negotiations.

"It is important that the outside world shows the Chinese government that there is big concern about what is going on in Tibet. It is clear that the right to self-determination of the Tibetan people is strangled."

The trio also said they backed a demand by the Tibetan government-in exile for a referendum on the future status of Tibet, provided it took place in Tibetan areas and was conducted under strict international control.

Beijing should place restrictions on the migration of Chinese to Tibet and allow an international commission to reassess the position of settlers who have no formal residence permit.

The mission also called for international financial institutions to stop funding projects undertaken by the Chinese government in Tibet unless there were verificable guarantees they benefitted Tibetans.

The report urged foreign corporations to stay away from Tibet unless they could furnish proof that the local populace gained from their activities.

Chinese troops took control of Tibet in 1951. The Dalai Lama fled the country eight years later after a failed anti-Chinese uprising in which thousands of Tibetans were killed.