Who Is Jose Varela, Man in Miami's 'Herald' Drama?

By: E&P Staff Jose Varela, the man who holed up at the offices of the Miami Herald and sister publication El Nuevo Herald before being taken into custody Friday afternon -- he had wielded a toy gun -- listed several grievances behind his action, including pay and the need to tell the "truth" about what is allegedly going on at the papers. But who is he?

Varela is an editorial cartoonist for the paper and well-known figure in the Cuban-American community there. He is featured prominently on the El Nuevo Herald home page, with a photo/illustration of him and a list of his latest daily cartoons. He was recently divorced.

"I'm a happy man," he wrote about himself on the Herald web site. "Even though I cry if I see a movie like Titanic. Because I don't like sinkings."

He came to the U.S. from Cuba in the Mariel boat lift.

Varela had his bond increased to $75,000 by a judge on Saturday. He was initially being held on $22,500 bond.
Varela was carrying a knife and a black, plastic toy gun that resembled a real semiautomatic weapon, police said. He was taken to Miami-Dade County Jail Friday evening and charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a firearm.

El Nuevo reporter Rui Ferreira said Varela had been in the newsroom a week ago and told former colleagues he had bought sawed-off shotgun and an Uzi submachine gun because he felt unsafe in Jupiter, where he moved recently. Ferreira wrote in a blog that he had spoken to the gunman, who told him, "You are speaking to the new director of the newspaper and I am going to unmask all of the true conflicts in the newspaper."

Varela called the paper a "pigsty," and said it made fun of the Cuban exile community in Miami and that the paper paid poorly.

"They've been making fun of people long enough and today they will see it end in violence. But someone has to pay and that person is going to be (Humberto) Castello." he said, referring to the Spanish-language paper's executive editor -- whose office he would occupy before police got him out.

Varela's work is featured in the book, "Cuban Miami."

This is his mini-autobiography, from the El Nuevo Herald site.

*

I was born in Cuba, in the country -- which means any place that is not Havana -- more than 40 years ago but it kills me that I do not remember the exact date because I suffer from amnesia due to stress from credit cards.

I remember that I was always a bad student because I spent my time drawing caricatures of the teacher; before long they expelled me from the halls. Since I was not a chief, nor musician, nor a dancer, nor a ballplayer, nor a dissident with projects, I could not leave the country -- so I left on the first boat I could find. That was through Mariel to Key West.

I arrived in Miami and this was a swamp full of crocodiles but later it was dried up. They put up freeways, bridges and cafeterias to sell little Mor?n cakes and maracuy? juice. Later, a weekly newspaper got the idea (because they were missing the crossword puzzle) to publish my cartoons and later they began to give me prizes.

I really would have liked to enter NASA and become an astronaut, but dreams remain dreams. And in reality, the Man Upstairs gives and takes away. So he gave me a wife who never ages, a daughter who draws better than I can and a stout boy who, if he were to give me a karate chop with his hand, it would send me to the hospital.

What more can I ask of life? What's more, I've enjoyed Fidel's fall: tumbling on the floor, not me but Castro.

I'm a happy man. Even though I cry if I see a movie like Titanic. Because I don't like sinkings.