100 Francs Nelson Mandela

Rwanda issued this coin in 1990, the same year Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison after 27 years of incarceration — a release that came in February, setting off a cascade of political negotiations that would culminate in the end of apartheid. The timing of this Rwandan issue is notable given that Rwanda itself was on the precipice of the civil war that began in October of that year, when the Rwandan Patriotic Front invaded from Uganda.