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Sao Tome and Principe 1974 flag proposals

São Tomé e Príncipe

Some flag proposals

Some flag porposals

The files of late A. Usachow [from 1974, Ed.] show 8 flag projects worth mentioning.

Horizontal yellow over green (colours of the liberation movement), 2 red stars in the middle.

Since the struggle for independence was not satisfactorily represented by this, a red stripe was added nearby the hoist and the stars were changed to black.

The red stripe didn't express equality, and was replaced by a red triangle.

To express the African character better, the colour of the triangle was changed to black, with in the middle of it a red star for "unity in struggle". The two back stars were omitted.

Because the black stars would well enough express the unity of the two islands a new design was made. This flag was red with a yellow over green stripe with two black stars.

But in this way a four-striped was obtained, a type common to the Indian revolutionaries at the beginning of the 20th century. So the yellow-green stripe with the black stars was placed diagonal (from lower hoist to upper fly).

This still looked too much like the four-striped flag, so a design with three stripes diagonal yellow-red-green (with the stars on the central stripe) was made.

Two dark colours were however near each other which is against heraldic rules, so the stripes were placed green-red-black with narrow yellow fimbriations. The two black stars remained on the central stripe.

In the end none of the designs was adopted, but instead the flag of the MLSTP (said to be designed by its leader Manuel Pinto da Costa) was modified a little.

Source: "Flaggenmitteilung" no. 96 (march 1984)

Mark Sensen, 26 May 1997