Thousands of Zimbabwe's white farmers must decide by midnight tomorrow whether to fight President Robert Mugabe's government and risk jail or to flee lands they have farmed for generations.
Mr Mugabe has given nearly 3,000 of the country's 4,500 white farmers a deadline to hand over their land for redistribution to blacks.
Farmers who defy an eviction order face fines and up to two years in prison.
The farmers are the first major group to face eviction since Mr Mugabe launched his drive to compulsorily acquire white-owned farms for black resettlement two years ago.
Mr Mugabe, who is in Singapore on a business trip, has vowed to press ahead with his land reforms despite allegations he is wrecking the country's farm-based economy.
Zimbabwe has been in crisis since February 2000, when pro-government militants, led by veterans of the 1970s liberation war, began invading white-owned farms.
Eleven white farmers have been killed and thousands of black workers have been assaulted and forced to abandon farms.
Zimbabwe's farmers' representative groups say they support land redistribution, but are opposed to the government's method.
The European Union and the United States have imposed sanctions on Mr Mugabe and his ruling elite over his land policy and his controversial re-election in March. Many Western powers say the vote was rigged.