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Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo)

(1971-1997)

by Gerard van der Vaart and António Martins, 22 Nov 1998
adopted 5 July 1990

Laws about the flag
President's Flag
Flag of Mobutu’s party?

See also:

Laws about the flag

The Constitution of Zaire, which was in force until last Saturday was adopted 5 July 1990. The flag was described in article 4 of Title 1 (The Territory and sovereignty of the Republic) as follows:

Article 4: The emblem of the Republic is a light green flag, ornamented in the centre with a yellow circle in which a right hand is holding a torch with a red flame.

This flag was adopted on 19th November 1971 when the parliament adopted Loi no. 71-007 du 19 novembre 1971 portant revision de la Constitution.

In the first week of August 1992 there was already a legal mouve to get rid of the ’green flag with tourch’. At that time a National Conference was held in Kinshasa, which task it was to give Zaire a new - democratic - constitution - following other African countries which already did that. This National Conference decided to rename Zaire to Congo as well as to go back to "the old flag". Already a few days later this National Conference was abolished by order of mr. Mobutu.
Jos Poels, 19 May 97

As far as I know the lightest green used on a flag was in Zaire’s flag.
Ralf Stelter, 25 Jul 1999

I saw sizes ranging from 1to1 proportionally to 1to2.
Some flags had apple green backgrounds, Irish green backgrounds, dark green backgrounds. Some had red flames, orange flames, yellow flames outlined in black. I saw orange arms, brown arms, black arms, black torches, brown torches, badges so big, they dang near bled off the flag, badges so small, there was no point defacing the flag to begin with, and it goes on and on. I reckon a third of the flags I saw had the arm and torch facing toward the fly.
All of the above mentioned flags were flying over government facilities.
Clay Moss, 17 May 2005

Presidential flag

by Marcus Wendel, 16 Aug 1999 (source:[tal94])

This is the Presidential flag of Zaire under Mobuto.
Bruce Berry, 16 Aug 1999

The silhouetes are very familliar: The tank is a French AMX-13 and the jet is a French Mirage IIIC
Dov Gutterman, 16 Aug 1999

See DR Congo - Coat of Arms for details on the coat of arms.

As others have noted, the flag is not in use any more. It was shown in Smith's 1980 [smi82] book and the text regarding it says:
"Presidential flag is used by the prime-minister in his office as lieutenant-general of Zaïre armed forces. On his car he uses the national flag."
The flag is provided ratio approx. 3:4, and marked as "alternation" (one of several possible flags used either simultaneously or under certain conditions):
Željko Heimer, 17 Aug 1999