Shining Path calls for Peru election boycott

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - The Maoist Shining Path guerrilla group distributed flyers on Monday calling for a boycott of Peru's April 9 general election, a police official said.

The rebel group, which waged one of Latin America's bloodiest insurgencies in the 1980s and early 1990s, distributed hundreds of circulars calling for a boycott of the election in Aucayacu, an area in Peru's central jungle where drug traffickers operate, the police source said.

"Elections no, popular war yes," the special operations official from the National Police told Reuters, paraphrasing the flyers.

Shining Path began its "popular war" in Peru by burning ballot boxes in the Andes in 1980 on the eve of the first democratic elections in 12 years. The group was responsible for some 40,000 deaths in the 1980s and 1990s as it fought to impose communism on Peru, but its attacks dropped substantially after the capture in 1992 of its leader, Abimael Guzman.

Shining Path remains on the U.S. government's list of terrorist groups. Today, it has several hundred die-hard members holed up in Andean and jungle areas. Police and drug experts say it has linked up with what is an increasingly lucrative drugs trade.

Peru is the world's No. 2 cocaine producer after Colombia.

In December, Shining Path killed 13 police officers in two attacks, prompting concern about the April 9 election.

Peruvian authorities have promised extra police and army patrols to ensure the safety of Sunday's vote.