FACTBOX: Tiny Guinea-Bissau gripped by instability

(Reuters) - Soldiers killed Guinea-Bissau's President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira on Monday in an apparent revenge attack for the slaying of the army chief of the unstable West African country.

Guinea-Bissau has lurched from one political crisis to another since independence from Portugal in 1974. Instability has been fueled by drug traffickers who use the tiny West African country to smuggle cocaine from Latin America to Europe.

Here are some facts about Guinea-Bissau:

* THE COUNTRY:

AREA: 28,120 sq km: Guinea-Bissau is bordered to the north by Senegal and to the east and southeast by Guinea. About the size of Taiwan, it is flat, densely forested and dissected by many rivers.

POPULATION: 1.6 million.

LANGUAGES: The official language is Portuguese but Portuguese-based creole is the lingua franca. The most common native languages are Mande and Fulah.

CAPITAL: Bissau.

ETHNICITY: Balante 27 percent, Fulani 23 percent, Malinke 12 percent. There are also Mandyako, Pepel and other minorities.

RELIGION: Around two thirds practice traditional African religions; nearly one third are Muslim and there is a Catholic community.

* Most people are subsistence farmers. Cashew nuts, palm kernels and cotton are the main cash crops. Livestock, timber production and fishing are also important. There are deposits of bauxite and phosphates and unexploited offshore oil reserves.

* Since formal independence in 1974, Guinea-Bissau has been torn by a series of coups and uprisings. A 1998/99 civil war destroyed much of the very limited infrastructure.

* MILITARY AND POLITICS

-- Despite the end of the war, the military has continued to play an important role in politics, with a string of attempted coups despite the holding of elections in 1999 and 2005.

-- Former military ruler Joao Bernardo Vieira became president in 2005 and donors began to re-engage in the tiny nation but instability continued with various political agreements being signed and broken between political parties.

-- In August 2008, the army accused the head of the navy of trying to stage a coup.

-- President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira survived an attack on his residence in November, two days after the opposition rejected the results of parliamentary elections.

* THE DRUG THREAT:

-- The tiny former Portuguese colony on the tip of West Africa, has become a major hub in the flow of cocaine from Latin America to Europe as traffickers have taken advantage of a jagged coastline and a weak state mired in constant crises.

-- This, say narcotics experts, has fueled instability as some members of the military have facilitated the trade by guaranteeing safe passage for planes and boats ferrying millions of dollars worth of drugs.

-- Drugs are transported across the Atlantic by light aircraft or boats and then re-directed by plane or boat or on land on the next leg of their journey north to Europe.

* THE ECONOMY:

-- Guinea-Bissau is ranked 175th out of 177 nations in the U.N. Development Program's Human Development Index. Life expectancy at birth is less than 46 years.

-- In 2008, the U.N. said in a report by its Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) that sharp increases in foreign direct investment in Guinea-Bissau could point to a surge in illegal proceeds from cocaine trafficking swelling its economy.

-- The report said that Guinea Bissau, whose main export is cashew nuts, and after years of little or no FDI, had suddenly attracted $42 million of FDI in 2006, equal to a sixth of GDP.

-- Cashew nuts made up 90 percent of Guinea-Bissau's official exports. Total exports for 2008 were projected by the IMF to total nearly $94 million, against $71 million in 2007. Cashew nuts are expected to account for $87 million of the 2008 total.

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