Rwanda P-19 100 Francs 1989 UNC—Purple Zebra Edition!

Banknote Characteristics

• Varieties: Only one variety
• Front: Herd of zebras; white border on black, lilac and multicolor underprint
• Back: Woman carrying baby; landscape with volcanoes
• Color: Black on lilac and multicolor underprint
• Watermark: Impala head
• Composition: Paper
• Size: 135 × 70 mm
• Currency: Rwandan franc (1964–date)
• Issuing entity: National Bank of Rwanda
• Printer: De La Rue, London
• Demonetized: 31 December 2009
• Signatures: Agustin Ruzindana, Governor
• Designer: Unattested

Country: Rwanda

• Etymology: From Kinyarwanda u Rwanda, meaning "domain" or "expanse"
• Sovereignty:
  • German East Africa (1885–1916)
  • Ruanda-Urundi (Belgian territory, 1916–1962)
  • Republic of Rwanda (1962–date)
• Capital: Kigali — pop. 1,745,753 (Census 2022)
• Population: 13,246,394 (Census 2022) — similar to Illinois (US) or Greece
• Population density: 501/km² (1,298/mi²) — similar to New Jersey (US) or the Netherlands
• Size: 26,338 km² (10,169 mi²) — similar to Massachusetts (US) or Belgium
• GDP per capita (PPP): approx. $3,276 USD — ranks 168th of 195 countries worldwide (IMF 2026)
• Official language(s): Kinyarwanda, French, English (added post-1994), Swahili (added 2017). Note that Dutch, the co-official language of Belgium, also appeared alongside French on official proclamations, postage stamps etc. under Belgian rule.
• Spoken language(s): Kinyarwanda ~99% (mother tongue); Swahili widely spoken as a second language and lingua franca, especially in western regions and urban markets (Census 2022)
• Rwanda unfiltered:
  • In 1994, Rwanda experienced one of the fastest mass killings in recorded history — an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 people murdered in roughly 100 days, a rate that exceeded even the Holocaust in speed.
  • Thirty years later, the country has the highest proportion of women in parliament of any nation on earth — over 60% of seats. 
  • Rwanda has a national day called Umuganda — the last Saturday of every month, the entire country stops and does mandatory community work together. Roads, schools, terraces. 
  • Kigali is now consistently ranked the cleanest city in Africa.
  • Plastic bags have been banned since 2008 — you will be stopped at the airport if you try to bring one in.

Five years before the human catastrophe…

This note was issued on 24 April 1989. Five years later, Rwanda would become synonymous with one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. The genocide of 1994 killed an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 people — predominantly Tutsi — in roughly 100 days. It was organized, it was fast, and it happened while the world watched and did nothing. The UN peacekeeping force on the ground was ordered not to intervene. The Clinton administration actively avoided using the word "genocide" to sidestep any legal obligation to act.

The serene Rwanda of zebras, pasture and hills

The zebras on the front and the volcano landscape on the back — serene, pastoral, the Rwanda of wildlife and hills — belong to a country that was five years away from catastrophe. The woman carrying her baby on the reverse is an image of ordinary life in a nation that was about to be torn apart along ethnic lines that had been sharpened and instrumentalized by decades of colonial policy under the Belgians, who had institutionalized the Hutu-Tutsi distinction and issued identity cards by ethnicity. Those cards were used at roadblocks in 1994 to sort who lived and who died.

Rwanda's Extraordinary Rebirth

What Rwanda did next is almost as remarkable as what happened. Under Paul Kagame, the country rebuilt with extraordinary speed — economically, institutionally, and in terms of public safety. Kigali is today one of the cleanest, safest, and most organized capitals in Africa. The Gacaca courts processed over a million genocide cases through a community justice system. Ethnic identity markers were officially abolished. The transformation is real — and contested, because Kagame's Rwanda is also an authoritarian state with little tolerance for dissent. The miracle and the control are inseparable.

And yet Rwanda is a "bad actor" in Congo

And then there is eastern Congo. Rwanda has been credibly accused — and largely confirmed by UN experts — of backing the M23 rebel group, which seized significant territory in eastern DRC including the city of Goma in early 2025, displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians. Kagame's stated rationale centers on the FDLR — Hutu militias operating in eastern Congo, many of them descendants of genocide perpetrators who fled in 1994. The security concern is real. But critics point equally to eastern Congo's vast deposits of coltan, gold, and other minerals that have flowed through Rwandan supply chains for decades. The genocide gave Rwanda a permanent moral claim that has long complicated international willingness to hold it accountable. That calculation is now being tested.

Own this document of Rwanda, before and after

This note was demonetized on 31 December 2009 when the National Bank of Rwanda replaced the entire note series with a modernized issue carrying updated security features. This was not a revaluation — no zeros were dropped, the franc kept its value, and old notes could be exchanged at face value during the transition window. After that date, this note ceased to be legal tender. For collectors, that deadline is what makes it: a closed chapter, a fixed artifact, a document of Rwanda before and after.

The volcanoes in the background are the Virunga Mountains, home to the last wild population of mountain gorillas. They were there before 1994. They're still there now.