Mozambique and the Soviet Union rejected the findings of the Margo Commission, led by Justice Cecil Margo. The commission was instituted to investigate into the aircraft crash in which President Samora Machel of Mozambique had been killed. The commission found that the accident had been caused by an error of the crew and that the aircraft had not been lured off course by a decoy beacon as was alleged. Machel was on his way back from an international meeting in Malawi in the presidential Tupolev Tu-134 aircraft when the plane crashed in the Lebombo Mountains, near Mbuzini. Sources: Wallis, F. (2000). Nuusdagboek: feite en fratse oor 1000 jaar, Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau. Kalley, J.A.; Schoeman, E. & Andor, L.E. (eds)(1999). Southern African Political History: a chronology of key political events from independence to mid-1997, Westport: Greenwood.

In protest of the system of apartheid, economic sanctions against South Africa had been advocated from the 1960s onwards. However, it was only in the 1980s that the implementation of sanctions would significantly pressurize the apartheid government to end its policy of segregation. In 1962, the United Nations established their Special Committee against Apartheid, which called for sanctions against South Africa. Britain was not convinced that this would encourage a change of policy in South Africa, and boycotted the committee. By 1979, Margaret Thatcher had become the Prime Minister of Britain and remained steadfast in her disapproval of sanctions against South Africa, despite the fact that western and newly-independent African countries supported the economic isolation of South Africa. In 1986, disagreements over the sanctions against South Africa took place at a meeting of the Commonwealth. It was Thatcher's opinion that economic sanctions would not achieve the goal of ending the apartheid regime and would lead to the greater suffering of South Africa's black population. Kenneth Kaunda, President of Zambia, along with other Commonwealth leaders, felt that South Africa's government must be forced to change its policy through economic isolation. On 3 August 1986, Kaunda suggested that Thatcher be excluded from talks on South African sanctions. A later meeting in London resulted in the decision that Commonwealth governments would take an individual decision as far as economic sanctions against South Africa were concerned. A disinvestment campaign in the United States resulted in a significant amount of support for economic sanctions against South Africa. The impact of this disinvestment eventually led to the dismantling of apartheid in the 1990s. Related: The Margaret Thatcher Foundation References: Disinvestment from South Africa [online] Available at: www.wikipedia.org [Accessed 28 July 2009] Economic sanctions [online] Available at: encyclopedia.farlex.com [Accessed 28 July 2009]

A coup attempt headed by Brigadier-General Thomas Quiwonkpa, a faction of the Liberian military failed to take power from Samuel Doe. It was a third coup attempt since Samuel Doe took power in 1980. The 1985 coup came a month after the fraudulent first elections ever held in Liberia returned Samuel Doe to power. The opposition refused to accept the election and were threatened by Doe to accept them. As a result, the military decided to take power by force and restore democratic rule. Samuel Doe's rule of Liberia ended a century old rule by the Americo-African elites who were descendents of freed American slaves. They came to Liberia in 1847 and held power until S Doe's take over. Click here to read more about Liberian military politics.

According to Coleman (ed.) in A Crime Against Humanity, the mutilated body of Toto Roy Dweba, member of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and of the Natal Freedom Charter Committee was found on this date at the Natal North Coast. Giving testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Dweba's widow Daphne stated that her husband was abducted from his place of work on 19 August 1985. He was fatally stabbed and mutilated in Eshowe on 20 August 1985. She said that she had received strange phone calls, and suspected that the caller was responsible for the abduction and killing. On 27 August, a petrol bomb was thrown at the Dweba house. It was suspected that the special branch wanted to destroy the whole family, as Dweba's death was becoming a matter of public scrutiny. He was buried on 5 September. Two weeks later his hands were found in a plastic bag in a cane field. After forensic tests in Pretoria had confirmed that it was indeed his hands, Dweba's uncle, police officer Maxwell Dweba, was contacted by the Empangeni police station and told to fetch his nephew's hands, which were then buried. Three months after the funeral, an unknown White man in civilian clothing sought out Maxwell Dweba and took him to a white Ford Escort in Gillespie Street, Durban. In the boot were his dead nephew's clothes, which, the unknown White man said, were "from Pretoria". In evidence given to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in section 29 by Security Branch member Vusi Ismael "Spyker" Myeza, Myeza indicated that Dweba was suspected of being a courier of guns for the African National Congress (ANC) from Swaziland. The Commission found that Dweba was killed by, or on orders of, unknown security forces members, and that his death was a gross violation of human rights, which entailed deliberate planning on the part of the said security forces. Dates differ in various sources.

South Africa's Prime Minister since 1978, P.W. Botha, was unanimously elected by eighty-eight members of the Electoral College to the office of first executive president. This was a newly created position after the new constitution came into force in 1984. The constitution further created three houses of parliament, namely the House of Assembly for Whites, the House of Representatives for Coloureds, and House of Delegates for Indians with the president presiding over them. Botha held the position until he resigned in 1989. Blacks were not happy with these new developments, they viewed the new constitution as a means to enhance apartheid.

Joshua Nkomo, long time friend of Robert Mugabe, was dismissed as minister of the interior on the accusation of plotting a coup in Zimbabwe. This triggered bitter fighting between Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) supporters in the Ndebele-speaking region of the country and the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). Between 1982 and 1985 the military brutally crushed armed resistance in Ndebeleland and Mugabe's rule was left secure. At least 20 000 died in the ensuing massacres.

The Swaziland government welcomed South Africa's offer to hand over parts of KaNgwane and KwaZulu to Swaziland, since, it claims the territory is historically and culturally part of the Swazi kingdom. The areas demarcated for the hand over were adjacent to Swaziland. The Kwazulu homeland government under the leadership of Chief Gatsha Buthelezi objected and successfully launched a court case against the move on the grounds that the Kwazulu homeland was not properly consulted as stated in the homeland act.

A call for a thirty-minute work stoppage in protest against the death of Dr. Neil Aggett, who allegedly committed suicide while in police detention, was supported by virtually all-independent Black unions, and tens of thousands of workers. Outrage at the circumstances of his death cut across racial lines and prompted White opposition politicians, lawyers, academics and church leaders to lead demands for the end of prolonged solitary detention without trial because of the intolerable pressure it creates.

Ciskei becomes the fourth Black homeland to be granted 'independence' by the South African Government. Chief Lennox Sebe is elected President by the National Assembly, consisting of both elected members and thirty-seven hereditary chiefs.

The office of a member of Prime Minister P.W. Botha's team, responsible for drawing up plans for a Southern African Constellation of States, Professor Jan Lombard, was destroyed at the University of Pretoria. The aims of the proposed constellation included inducing neighbouring states to deny bases to guerrilla forces seeking the armed overthrow of government in SA; curbing Russian influence in these states; strengthening economic ties in the subcontinent; and, prevailing on them to 'display some moderation' in criticising SA's internal policies. The government proposed to use its economic power to secure these objectives by means of incentives and rewards to countries which complied with the initiative. The Black states, including the independent 'homelands' rejected the idea, but the SA government was hoping to sell the concept to the White electorate, who would be going to the polls in two weeks time. An extreme right wing group, the Wit Kommando (White Commando), foreign White expatriates opposed to any relaxing of apartheid principles, claimed responsibility for the bomb attack. One source states the year as 1979, but gives no specific date.