CARACAS, Aug. 30 (Xinhuanet) -- The Venezuelan opposition coalition on Monday attacked President Hugo Chavez's land policy, accusing the government of being the protector of robbers.

    The statement, by the Democratic Coordination, followed Chavez's pledge Sunday to enforce an agriculture law that allows the government to tax and expropriate idle land and give it to poor peasants as a part of his "agrarian revolution."

    The opposition coalition said in a statement that "most of the owners who are not working on their lands are in such a position because they cannot do so, since in our country the government, instead of protecting our producers, protects robbers."

    Chavez, who won a recall referendum on Aug. 15, ordered his military commanders to investigate large rural estates and report idle land not in productive use, but the opposition said most of the idle lands are already in government hands.

    "Out of every five potentially productive hectares laying idle,four are in the hands of the State," the statement said.

    The opposition said the country's agricultural production is damaged by the "official negligence" in the combat against guerrillas, whose members kidnap and extort agricultural producers and ranchers, and by the illegal seizure of privately-owned lands with tacit government approval.

    The 2001 Land Law imposes strict rules on what ranchers and farmers can produce on land, and sanctions idle land with taxes orby expropriation.

    The law also permits the state to grant state-owned land to the homeless who will farm with the help of cheap state credits. But private land owners claim mistakes have been made in classifying land as state-owned or private.

    Chavez, who survived a coup in 2002 and months of street protests and strikes, said that he will try to negotiate with landowners to persuade them to voluntarily sell their land to the government.

    "We aren't enemies of the landowners, nor do we want to burn them or to invade their property," Chavez said. "I call on all those who own lots of idle land, let's talk."

    According to a 1998 census, 60 percent of Venezuela's farmland,or nearly 179,200 square kilometers, was owned by less than 1 percent of the population. The survey said 90 percent of farmland given to peasants in a 1960 reform program reverted to large landholders. Enditem