Argentine singer and writer, was on his way to the main airport in Guatemala City when gunmen attacked his car, striking him at least eight bullets, said city fire representative Jose Rodriguez. He said concert promoter Henry Cabral Farina was also wounded. The motive was not clear.
Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom said he called his Argentine counterpart, Cristina Fernandez, to tell her about the murder.
“It seemed that hit her hard and she asked me to inform her that develops as a consequence,” he told Radio Argentina 10. Colom said officials were interviewing victims and witnesses and analyzes images from video monitors in the area.
“Adios, amigo,” chirped the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Argentina, Hector Timerman, in the message, which expressed “deep sorrow” over the murder.
Some evidence suggests that the killing was not a simple robbery. Cabral was driving the truck, who tried to flee from the assailants while driving in the fire station. He was accompanied by second vehicle carrying bodyguards, according to Guatemalan television Notisiete.
Police spokesman Donald Gonzalez said agents apparently found one of the vehicles used in the attack, abandoned along the road of El Salvador. He said it was pocked with bullet holes and spent cartridges were found inside.
Cabral was confirmed by a vagrant, was born into a poor family in 1937 in the provincial city of La Plata in honor of his father abandoned his large family. At age 9, he began hitchhiking only to the length of Argentina apply for a job for his mother.
Odd jobs and he was illiterate until he received some education in correctional as a teenager. In the end, he picked up the guitar and sings in the style of his idol, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Argentine folklore.
Cabral started singing for tourists in the seaside resort of Mar del Plata, and by 1970 became world famous thanks to his song “No Aqui Soy de Alla u” – “I’m not here or there – which was recorded hundreds of times in many languages .
By then, Argentina has come under military rule in 1976, Cabral was clearly identified as a protest singer, and he fled for his life in Mexico, where he kept a record, write books and give concerts.
He lost his wife and 1-year-old daughter in a plane crash in 1978.
His concerts were a mixture of philosophy and folklore music. He called himself an anarchist from time to time, practicing spirituality relaxed to any particular religion. On stage, he pointed out the wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Theresa, Walt Whitman, humanism and comments Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges.
He lived mostly on the road, in hotels or with friends, and was named an “international ambassador of peace”, UNESCO gave him in 1996. In the end, he often used a reed and had problems with eyesight.
“I always pray to God:” Why you gave me so much? You gave me pain, hunger, happiness, struggle and enlightenment … I’ve seen everything. I know that cancer, syphilis, and in the spring, apple dumplings and fried, “he said at 71, during an interview with Associated Press in Miami.
He never thought of resignation: “I can not stop, I could not,” he said. “I breathe on the road … on the stage, I’m 50 years younger, I am pleased to bring people to life.”
Cabral said then that he wanted to die during a concert tour.
Cabral gave his last concert on Thursday in the city of Quetzaltenango, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) west of Guatemala City.
Guatemala 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rigoberta Menchu, went to the murder scene and began to cry. “For me, Facundo Cabral is the master,” she said. “He loved Guatemala considerably.”
Social networks were filled with expressions of indignation. “I feel an immeasurable shame, a deep anger for my country,” said Ronalth Ochaeta, former director of the Catholic Church human rights office of Guatemala, to his credit Facebook.
