2012 in South Africa

Incumbents

• President - Jacob Zuma
• Deputy President - Kgalema Motlanthe
• Chief Justice - Mogoeng Mogoeng

  Events

• 10 - Marikana miners initiate a Wildcat strike.
• 13 - Striking miners hack to death two security guards and two policemen and remove body parts from the corpses to make muti that would make them "invincible against police bullets".
• 16 - Police open fire on a group of striking Marikana miners, killing 34 and injuring approximately 78.

• 18 - Eight South African citizens are killed in Kabul, Afghanistan, when a suicide bomber blows herself up.

• 1 - The South African Government commissions an inquiry into the shooting at Marikana.
• 18 - A South African Defence Force soldier attached to the African Union/United Nations peacekeeping forces in Sudan is killed and 3 others injured in an ambush in Northern Darfur.

• 11 - A runaway fire destroys 76 houses in St Francis Bay.

  Births

Deaths

• 2 March - Lawrence Anthony, author.
• 15 May - John Murray, 11th Duke of Atholl, surveyor
• 27 August - Dr. Neville Alexander, linguist, academic and anti-apartheid campaigner
• 21 October - Alfred Kumalo, photographer.

  Railways