GUATEMALA CITY — One of Latin America’s most admired folk singers, Facundo Cabral, was killed Saturday when three carloads of gunmen ambushed the vehicle in which he was riding, prompting expressions of anguish from across the region.
Authorities said the performer’s concert promoter was apparently the target.
Interior Minister Carlos Menocal said the Argentine singer and novelist was on his way to Guatemala’s main airport at 5:20 a.m. when cars carrying the gunmen flanked it on both sides and opened fire as a third vehicle blocked it from the front.
Speaking at a news conference along with President Alvaro Colom, Menocal said early investigations indicated the bullets were meant for the driver, Cabral’s Nicaraguan promoter, Henry Farinas, who was wounded.
Cabral, 74, rose to fame in the early 1970s, one of a generation of singers who mixed political protest with literary lyrics and created deep bonds with an audience struggling through an era of revolution and repression across Latin America.
At the news conference, Colom said the slaying was committed by “people involved in organized crime. They are not street killers. It’s a well-planned operation.”
But officials said they were not sure of the motive. They later found one of the vehicles apparently used in the attack alongside a highway toward El Salvador. Menocal said bulletproof jackets, pistols and the clip of a Kalashnikov rifle were found inside.
Cabral was a confirmed vagabond, born poor in 1937 in the provincial city of La Plata after his father abandoned their large family. At the age of 9, he began hitchhiking alone up the length of Argentina to beg for a job for his mother.
He did odd jobs and was illiterate until he got some education in a reformatory as a teenager. He eventually picked up a guitar, singing in the manner of his idol, Argentine folklorist Atahualpa Yupanqui.
Cabral began singing for tourists in the beach resort of Mar del Plata, and by 1970 he became internationally known through his song “No Soy de Aqui ni Alla” — “I’m Not From Here nor There” — which was recorded hundreds of times in many languages.
He lost his wife and a 1-year-old daughter in a plane crash in 1978.
His concerts were a mix of philosophy and folklore, spoken-word poems and music reflecting his roots in the gaucho culture of rural Argentina. On stage, he celebrated the wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa, the humanism of Walt Whitman and the observations of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
“Facundo Cabral was our last troubadour,” said Argentine singer Isabel de Sebastian. “As much a philosopher-poet as a singer, he was a living testament to the search for what unites us in culture and society.”
