State President: Marais Viljoen
Vice State President: Alwyn Schlebusch
January
7 – A bomb damages the office of the West Rand Administration Board in Soweto.
8 – Umkhonto we Sizwe guerrillas attack Koeberg nuclear power plant in Cape Town.
11 – The United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid launches the International Year of Mobilisation for Sanctions against South Africa.
February
15 – Four COSAS-Members are bombed by the Security Branch under orders of Brigadier Schoon at a mine dump outside Kagiso. Three die and one is injured.
18 – The South African Navy frigate SAS President Kruger sinks with the loss of 16 lives after colliding with SAS Tafelberg.
24 – Andries Treurnicht and another 22 National Party MPs vote for no confidence in P.W. Botha.
South Africa and Swaziland sign a non-aggression pact.
The South African Defence Force's Operation Super takes place.
March
6 – Frederik Willem de Klerk replaces Andries Treurnicht as leader of the National Party in the Transvaal.
14 – A bomb explodes at the African National Congress headquarters in London. General Johann Coetzee and seven other policemen (Craig Williamson, John McPherson, Roger Raven, Wybrand du Toit, John Adam, James Taylor and Eugene de Kock) will later claim responsibility in retaliation for the 11 August 1981 attack on the military base at Voortrekkerhoogte outside Pretoria in which two British citizens, Nicholas Heath and Bonnie Lou Muller, were involved.
20 – A bomb explodes at the Langa Commissioners Court.
April
30 – President of South Africa Pieter Willem Botha and President of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda meet on the Botswana border to discuss the political situation in South West Africa and South Africa.
May
12 – A bomb damages the office of the West Rand Administration Board in Soweto for the second time.
21 – A bomb explodes at the offices of the Department of Coloured Affairs in Pinetown near Durban.
28 – A fuel depot and power transformer in Hectorspruit is damaged by a limpet mine.
June
3 – A bomb damages the railway near Dube in Soweto.
4 – One person is killed when a bomb explodes in a lift (elevator) at the offices of the Presidents Council in Cape Town.
28 – The railway depot at Vryheid is damaged in an explosion.
28 – In Scheepersnek, two bombs cause extensive damage to the railway depot, pump station, stores and vehicles.
28 – The Durban-Witwatersrand oil pipeline is damaged by a bomb.
July
In Port Elizabeth the police station commander's office and New Law Courts are damaged in an attack.
August
28 – The Umvoti Mounted Rifles base in Red Hill, Durban is attacked.
September
24 – Umkhonto we Sizwe places explosives on a railway bridge near Upington that fails to detonate.
Two insurgents are killed by police in Boksburg.
October
26 – Three bombs explode at the Drakensberg Administration offices in Pietermaritzburg.
A special branch policeman and an insurgent are killed in a skirmish in KwaZulu-Natal.
November
8 – A bomb causes severe damage at the Mobil fuel storage depot in Mkuze.
20-21 – Umkhonto we Sizwe cadres use RPG-7s to attack a rural police station and temporary South African Army garrison at Tonga.
December
10 – The South African Defence Force stages a pre-dawn raid on houses inhabited by the banned African National Congress in Maseru, Lesotho.
18-19 – Four explosions cause massive damage at the Koeberg nuclear power station just north of Cape Town.
31 – A bomb damages the Johannesburg Magistrates court 200m from John Vorster Square.
One person is killed and 70 injured in a bomb blast at the Southern Free State Administration Board in Bloemfontein.
Unknown date
Bulelani Ngcuka is jailed for three years for refusing to give evidence in the political trial of Patrick Maqubele and others.
5 February – Dr. Neil Aggett, trade union leader and labour activist, dies in police detention.
29 March – Henry Selby Msimang, journalist and political activist, dies in Edendale, Pietermaritzburg aged 95.
4 June – P. Nyaose, senior African National Congress member, and his wife are killed by a car bomb in Swaziland.
16 July – Charles Robberts Swart, last Governor-General of the Union of South Africa and first State President of the Republic of South Africa. (b. 1894)
17 August – Ruth First, anti-apartheid activist and scholar, killed by a parcel bomb addressed specifically to her in Mozambique. (b. 1925)
20 August – Walter Battiss, artist, dies at the age of 76 (b. 1906)
November – Policeman Warrant Officer P. Selepe, who gave evidence in many trials, is assassinated in Mamelodi.
Three new Cape gauge locomotive types enter service on the South African Railways (SAR):
The first of fifty-five Class 6E1, Series 10 electric locomotives.
Twenty-five 25 kV AC Class 7E2, Series 1 electric locomotives.
The first of six Class 9E, Series 2 General Electric Company 50 kV AC electric locomotives on the Sishen-Saldanha iron ore line.
16 October – Gabashane Rakabaele wins his third national title in the men's marathon, clocking 2:17:36 in Durban.
23 January – The South African Grand Prix takes place at Kyalami.
