Complex sentence: Whites in Zimbabwe sought to preserve their position in the country by supporting democracy, civil rights, the rule of law and opposing to arbitrary transfer of property through land reforms, quite a transformation from the position that most whites had taken in the period before independence.
Split into simpler sentences: Whites in Zimbabwe sought to preserve their position in the country by supporting democracy, civil rights, the rule of law and through opposition to the arbitrary transfer of property through land reforms. This was quite a transformation from the position that most whites had taken in the period before independence.