Product Description
SCWPM.19b - TBB.#B107c - Date: 20-5-1981 - Grade: Unc. - Sign.1
Description: - Colour: Brown. - Front: French text; coat of arms; Mobutu Sésé Seko in civilian clothes with toque; leopard. - Back: French text; bank initials; elephant tusks; smokestack; pyramid. - Solid security thread.
Watermark: Mobutu Sésé Seko and 1 ZAÏRE. - Printing: lithograped - Printer: GIESECKE & DEVRIENT - MUNICH.
Size: 160 x 80 mm. - Material: Paper.
Zaire, officially the Republic of Zaire, was the name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1971 to May 18, 1997. Located in Central Africa, it was, by area, the third-largest country in Africa after Sudan and Algeria, and the 11th-largest country in the world from 1965 to 1997. With a population of over 23 million, Zaire was the most populous Francophone country in Africa. Zaire played a central role during the Cold War.
The country was a one-party totalitarian military dictatorship, run by Mobutu Sese Seko and his Popular Movement of the Revolution.
Zaire was established following Mobutu's seizure of power in a military coup in 1965, after five years of political upheaval following independence from Belgium known as the Congo Crisis. Zaire had a strongly centralist constitution, and foreign assets were nationalized.
The period is sometimes referred to as the Second Congolese Republic.
