Zimbabwe farmers deadline passes with little resistance

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- A deadline expired Sunday for the nation's white farmers to leave their properties, and it passed with little apparent resistance, a farmers group said Sunday.

But the percentage of farmers complying with the demand was not clear. White farmers represent 1 percent of the country's population, but own 70 percent of the land. President Robert Mugabe has ordered many to give up their land to landless peasants in order to right the wrongs of colonialism.

Critics have accused him of using that as an excuse to give the land to his cronies, a charge he denies.

Jenni Williams, a spokeswoman for Justice for Agriculture, said "quite a few" farmers were evicted Sunday in the northern province of Mashonaland West, and one farmer was arrested in the Mashonaland Central province.

"We do anticipate that over the next few days we might see more arrests, but the deadline really seems to have come and gone without a big fuss," she told CNN.

But Williams said Mugabe's effort has little to do with correcting the ills of colonialism: 75 percent of the country's white landowners bought their property after 1980, when Zimbabwe became independent, she said.

"We're also not seeing landless blacks actually benefiting from the farms," she added. The land taken from the farmer arrested Sunday was given to the wife of a former government minister, Williams said.

About 40 percent of the nation's white farmers have left their homes since the start of the land reform program.