BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – The body of singer Facundo Cabral was brought home from Guatemala Tuesday on a Mexican Air Force jet, a fitting touch since Cabral spent much of his vagabond life in Mexico, which provided him with a refuge during the Argentine dictatorship.
His widow, Silvia Pousa, and nephew joined foreign minister Hector Timerman and a small group of Guatemalan and Mexican diplomats on the tarmac in Buenos Aires to receive his remains. One official brought from the plane a guitar and a small bag. Cabral had said that was all he needed for his nearly constant singing tours.
His coffin was to be displayed for the public in the Ateneo, the same Buenos Aires theater where he last performed in his native Argentina. Timerman said he would be cremated Wednesday at La Chacarita, a cemetery where Carlos Gardel and many other historic Argentine figures are buried.
Cabral was shot to death Saturday in an attack Timerman said was apparently directed by organized crime figures at Cabral's Nicaraguan concert promoter, Henry Farinas. He was wounded and remains in serious condition, unable to testify yet about what happened, according to Guatemalan authorities.
Prosecutor Mynor Melgar said police are investigating Farinas, but that he had no criminal record, and the motive remains unclear. Farinas owns a chain of strip clubs called "Elite," with branches in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Mexico's Zetas and Sinaloa drug cartels also have a presence in Guatemala and may be competing for territory.
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.
