I'm doing a history project on conflict between these two religions in/around Tibet in the 1950s-present, but i can't find any information anywhere that goes into actual detail! D: help please?
Don't describe atheism as a religion in your project; that's a misnomer. You can describe it as a worldview, but not a belief or religion. Atheism is a lack of belief in gods, while anti-theism would be a positive belief that gods do not exist.
Atheism isn't a religion. It is the lack of belief in a deity.
Many forms of Buddhism ARE atheistic, in that they too do not have any gods.
If you are researching the Tibetan conflict, that isn't about religion but government. The Tibetan Buddhists have their own system of rule, and the Chinese don't particularly like it when things conflict with the formal government. Has jack-all to do with atheism or Buddhism.
What two religions? They aren't even two beliefs! Buddhism IS but atheism is a LACK of a particular belief & therefore anything BUT a belief. A disbelief is NOT a belief.
As many others have said, atheism isn't a religion.
On top of that, Buddhism and atheism have never been in conflict. Buddhism doesn't involve worship ping in subservience a God for fear of eternal damnation, it's more like a way of life that requires no deity. So, there is no conflict there.
The Chinese stomped them in Tibet because they were Communist and sought to homogenize the culture of the entire nation of China. Atheism had nothing to do with it. It was just about eradicating the people who were "different" and opposed their tyranny.
People do not worship Buddha they follow his teachings
So although Buddhism is a belief system it is not technically a religion
Atheism is the absence of either. How I live my life and how for example Richard Dawkins lives his life will probably have almost nothing in common apart from we both disbelieve the existence of god.
Atheism is not an organized group so you cannot really say it has ever been in conflict with any one apart from an individual basis.
Edit
I think Skeptikitten is correct and you want the Tibetan conflict