Courtesy of NPR

Americans are rightly worried Mexico’s bloody drug war will spill over into border states.

But on Mexico’s southern border, the escalating conflict has spilled over into Guatemala, silencing a great voice for peace and hope in Latin America.

Last Saturday, Argentine artist and activist Facundo Cabral, was killed in a car on the way to an airport in Guatemala.

It is strongly believed that Cabral may not have been the intended target of a hit. Instead it was the driver, a Nicaraguan businessman.

Like Mexico, Guatemala is plagued with gangs and guns. Even the rich and famous are not safe.

Cabral was not only a singer and songwriter, but a voice of Latin America in the 1970s amidst political tensions and dictatorships. He was a novelist and honored an international messenger of peace by UNESCO in 1996.

One of his most famous songs, which was recorded about forty years ago, “No soy de aquí ni allá” (”I am not from here, nor there”), has been translated into many languages.

The radio show Multi-American, has spoken about the song’s appeal to the cultural identity for the growing numbers of Americans with Latino background.

While the perpetrators have been apprehended, the attack has not only shocked the Latin music community, but left many artists wary of traveling to Guatemala.

The cancerous drug war continues to spread with a cure no where in sight.