Santa Fe author Fernando Garavito wasn't afraid to write his mind about his native Bogotá, Colombia, and its problems. He was critical of its government, paramilitary groups and drug cartels.

His writing cost him his country.

Now his voice is silent.

Garavito, who fled his beloved Colombia with his family in 2002 because of death threats, died Wednesday afternoon in a single-car accident near Marfa, Texas, where he was returning from Santa Fe to a Lannan Foundation writer-in-residence program.

His death shocked staff members at the Lannan Foundation, who know the family's many struggles since seeking asylum in the United States.

"He was an amazing man," said Patrick Lannan, president of the Lannan Foundation. "It is cliché, but he really was not afraid to speak truth to power. He and his family were not afraid to express their views about things. Speaking truth to power, in a moral sense, is the responsibility of intellectuals. But most of the time, intellectuals don't speak truth to power, they work for power."

Dave Ungerleider, a Jesuit priest in Tijuana, Mexico, and a Lannan director, exchanged e-mails with Fernando almost every day. "I have a hard time digesting that he is gone," he said. "He was at a most marvelous moment of his life, being at Marfa and being at a time and place to finish his writing."

Garavito, a former columnist for The New Mexican, was born in Bogotá in 1944. He earned a law degree from the University of Javeriana and became a columnist at El Espectador in 1988. He began writing columns under the pen name Juan Mosca (John Fly) about ÁlvaroUribe Velez, a presidential candidate in 2002. He alleged that Uribe Velez, who served as Colombia's president from 2002 to 2010, was in league with drug traffickers and paramilitary groups. His 2002 book titled Álvaro Uribe, El Señor de las Sombras (Álvaro Uribe, Lord of the Shadows) prompted death threats.

He, his wife Priscilla Welton, a classically trained ballet dancer who had her own studio, and their two children left everything and sought asylum in the U.S. "When we found out about him, they were up in Maine in winter, probably the worst place you could send some Colombians," said Lannan. "We felt we had to do something to get them out of there. It was our interest in the issue of cultural freedom, the journalist and the intellectual. We really believed in what he stood for."

PEN New Mexico and the Lannan Foundation sponsored the family in Santa Fe, where they moved in 2004.

Garavito struggled to keep his voice, write what he thought was important, communicate in a language foreign to him and find a venue.

"In the U.S. what happens, when it is an intellectual of a similar vein — like a Noam Chomsky — they don't kill you, they just ignore you," Lannan said. "In Mexico or Colombia, they just kill you."

Welton found work as a teacher at the National Dance Institute-New Mexico.

"I've always admired Fernando, first of all for his stamina and sticking up for what he believed, in Colombia and then trying to get his family adjusted here," Ungerleider said. "He was always a sincere man and forthright in following his conscience."

Garavito endured another blow in 2007 when Welton suddenly became ill and died.

He became a kindergarten teacher working with children in the Santa Fe Public Schools, always continuing to write. He was offered the Lannan residency to finish a book he was working on.

Texas Highway patrolman D.J. Pearson said it appeared Garavito lost control of his rental car. It skidded off the road about 1 p.m. Wednesday, hit a culvert and flipped. Pearson said the cause of the accident is under investigation.

Garavito is survived by his daughter, Manuela, son, Fernando Jr., and stepdaughter, Melibea.

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.