By Elaine Kurtenbach, Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) --- In a once-secret 1962 report that led to his downfall, Tibet's highest spiritual leader described Chinese-orchestrated famines, executions and mass beatings of Tibetans --- including his own father.

The Panchen Lama's report is being released in full for the first time Thursday by the Tibet Information Network, a London-based watchdog group.

The report, known in China as the "70,000 Character Petition,'' apparently circulated in China's top echelons for decades until a copy was delivered anonymously to the group in October 1996. Its authenticity could not be independently confirmed, and Chinese officials refused comment.

The Panchen Lama, who became the highest Buddhist figure in Tibet when the Dalai Lama fled after a failed uprising in 1959, was considered an ally by China's communist leaders, unlike most of his fellow Buddhist clerics.

But the Panchen Lama's special status disintegrated after he wrote the report, and Mao Tse-tung placed him under house arrest in Beijing for 14 years.

Tensions between the devoutly Buddhist Tibetans and their communist Chinese rulers persist today.

Three American religious leaders on a fact-finding mission in China are scheduled to visit the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, later this month to look into concerns about religious freedom.

Chinese policies were a "threat to the continued existence of the Tibetan nationality, which is sinking into a state close to death,'' the Panchen Lama wrote in 1962, 12 years into Chinese rule over the Himalayan region.

"It was quite natural that every member of the (Tibetan) nationality, on seeing and hearing about this situation, had unendurable feelings of bitterness and sadness,'' the report said.

China adamantly defends its current policies in Tibet, although it has acknowledged mistakes in the past, particularly during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, the high tide of its persecution of religious believers.

The report said that farm policies launched during the 1958 Great Leap Forward, which caused 30 million deaths throughout China, continued in Tibet long after they were stopped elsewhere.

During the Great Leap, China's farmers were forced to pool their possessions, farm communally, and turn all land, suitable or not, to grain cultivation. Such policies were particularly catastrophic for Tibetans, traditionally nomadic herders of livestock.

The report said that from 1959-1961, almost all animal husbandry stopped and personal food reserves of Tibetan nomads were confiscated. People subsisted on small grain rations, grass, leaves and tree bark, it said.

"In many parts of Tibet, people have starved to death. ... In some places, whole families have perished and the death rate is very high,'' the Panchen Lama wrote. "This is very abnormal, horrible and grave.''

The Panchen Lama protested the arrests and collective punishment of tens of thousands of Tibetans following the 1959 uprising.

He said people were executed whose relatives took part in the rebellion and that political prisoners were subjected to fatally cruel prison conditions.

The Panchen Lama wrote that his father was subjected to "public confrontation and fierce beating'' after he attempted to apologize for having been a landlord.

Only 70 of Tibet's 2,500 Buddhist monasteries remained by 1962, and 93 percent of their residents had been forced out, he said.

"If the language, clothes and customs of a nationality are taken away, then that nationality will vanish,'' he wrote.

China began relaxing controls over Tibet in the late 1970s, and has rebuilt monasteries and tried to alleviate poverty in an attempt to undo some of the damage wrought during the previous two decades.

The Panchen Lama's status was not fully restored until 1988 --- a year before he died.

The report could lead to a reappraisal of the Panchen Lama by those who believed he did too little to defend his fellow Tibetans, said Barry Saltman, an expert on Tibet at Hong Kong's University of Science and Technology.

"Both the Tibetans and Beijing sometimes viewed him as an enemy and sometimes as a friend,'' he said.

His legacy remains controversial. Communist Party rulers forced Tibet's Buddhist clergy to reject a 6-year-old boy the Dalai Lama named as the Panchen Lama's reincarnation in 1995. They hope that another child who they have chosen as the new Panchen Lama will help them win the allegiance of Tibetans.