One controversial development of Operation Reindeer helped sour the international community on the South African Border War. On 4 May 1978, a battalion-sized task force of the 44 Parachute Brigade conducted a sweep through the Angolan mining town of Cassinga, searching for what it believed was a PLAN administrative centre. Lieutenant General Constand Viljoen, the chief of the South African Army, had told the task force commanders and his immediate superior General Johannes Geldenhuys that Cassinga was a PLAN "planning headquarters" which also functioned as the "principal medical centre for the treatment of seriously injured guerrillas, as well as the concentration point for guerrilla recruits being dispatched to training centres in Lubango and Luanda and to operational bases in east and west Cunene." The task force was made up of older Citizen Force reservists, many of whom had already served tours on the border, led by experienced professional officers.