MR SIYOKO
I will try to explain - we were all  here - we would come back from work - what was happening here is that it was difficult to even go to town, we would be attacked.  We tried to lay charges but comrades were not allowed to lay charges.  The police would say only the  informers that could lay charges.  The comrades could not lay charges - I would try to run away as the police and the informers would chase me - I could not go to town - I had to stay in the township.
 What was happening then at the time - if you are honest and you were there you would not be able to tolerate such.  It was an ambivalent situation - what we were trying to do is to make the councillors step down because they made their own conclusions without consulting the community.  If you are a community leader you  must listen to the community - you must listen to their views - you then make decisions according to that - or if not - you negotiate with the people - you  make discussions.  But everybody must know that the situation in Hanover was due to the police.
 In 1985 when we started in the struggle we called the police, I was not working in Cape Town at the time - I was working here in Hanover.  We got up early in the morning - it was the first time we were involved in the struggle - we asked all the parents not to go to work - so that we could sort out our lives in Hanover.
Because there was no stable amount of rent - they looked at how much you earned and then took a percentage of that.  We would both - if there are two families in two roomed houses, one earned R500-00 and the other R1,000-00 the rent would differ.  They would take 10% of your salary and that would be the rent.  We could not accept such, that is why we tried to rise up as residents of Hanover.
We even tried and invited the Councillors to come to the meetings they refused but we made them step down because we could not be led by people who did not consider us at all.
When the councillors would come to tell us that the rent has gone up, and if you questioned why the rent was raised, they would say that it is the white people that has decided therefore there  is nothing that can be done.  It is such instances that caused chaos in Hanover.