On 11 December 1984, the apartheid security net was closing on Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Ingwavuma Unit, since in Emachobeni Royal Area of Ingwavuma, the police arrested Vusumuzi Nyawo while he was resting in a room at his mother’s house. Later on, the same day, Norbert Buthelezi, who was also a member of the Ingwavuma Unit, was arrested near a shopping centre.
On 13 December 1984, following the two arrests, Robert Dumisa (aka “Mugabe”) was with James Marupeng in the Isihlangwini Area when they were confronted by an apartheid police contingent in the Ubombo Mountains. When Marupeng attempted to remove a hand grenade from his pocket, the policemen overpowered him.
Meanwhile Dumisa was resisting a white officer who was trying to apprehend him, and during the ensuing struggle, he was persuading the black officers to kill their white counterpart and release him. Unfortunately, his appeals on the black policemen’s political and sentimental values were unsuccessful and he was arrested.
This all began on 10 February 1984, when the Military Intelligence (MI) Unit of the apartheid South African Defence Force (SADF) Natal Command received a report on Ntunja Mngomezulu, who was a candidate for the leadership of the Mngomezulu clan in the Ingwavuma area.
According to the report, Mngomezulu had, since 10 April 1973, been in exile in Swaziland, where he regularly attended African National Congress (ANC) gatherings in Siteki. A weapons cache was established by his followers
