On 29 January 1980, Petrus Mashigo who had been arrested in White River, Eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga Province), was handed over by Major van Wyk to apartheid Security Branch Warrant Officer Ehlers, who took him to the Security Branch offices in Tzaneen. On the road to Tzaneen, Mashigo informed Ehlers to take the route that passed through Lydenburg, and they proceeded for twenty-kilometre until they reached a board on the left-hand side of the road.
This board, which was used as a reference point for a Dead Letter Box (DLB), wherein weapons were stored, they walked sixteen steps across the road and then some thirty steps in the direction of Tzaneen. After they reached a short thick tree, near which the ground was recently disturbed, Ehlers began to dig and unearthed two blue trunks containing weapons. According to the apartheid Minister of Police, Louis le Grange, the arms cache consisted of rocket launchers, AK-47 assault rifles, ammunition, anti-tank rockets and hand grenades.
The following day, on 30 January, a team of apartheid Security Branch police took up positions outside a rondavel with a thatched roof, in a kraal, in the Oakley Reserve, within the district of Hazyview, in the Eastern Transvaal. Warrant Officer Potgieter moved closer to the door, knocked on the door, and shouted “Police, open up!”
After shouting several times, a child began to scream and the door suddenly sprung open. As the child screamed louder than before, Detective Sergeant Joha
