President Hugo Chávez announced Thursday a "new offensive" in the fight against large estate and disclosed that next Sunday his government will rescue at least 150,000 hectares of wastelands.

"There is still much large estate. Next Sunday, we will be somewhere in Venezuela, in the core of large estate. But we will recover some, about 150,000 or 200,000 hectares. We are assessing it yet," Chávez declared during an official ceremony in eastern Anzoátegui state.

The ruler refused to define the lands to be seized, but argued that some of them spread over "70,000 hectares and have only 4,000 cattle heads" according to the owners' reports, Efe quoted.

He insisted on saying that the primary purpose of the fight against wastelands is to ensure Venezuela's alimentary sovereignty.

In January 2004, Chávez declared deadly war against large estate and requested governors and mayors to identify idle lands, recover them and hand them over to peasants.