By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 25, 2006; A03
MIAMI, Nov. 24 -- Dressed in camouflage and brandishing what looked like a submachine gun, the cartoonist for this city's leading Spanish-language newspaper strode into the office of the top editor Friday morning and told startled staff, "I am the new executive editor, and that is my new office."
It was not a joke.
The demands of El Nuevo Herald cartoonist José Varela to see the editor, with whom he had unspecified grievances over ethics and what he told police were censorship issues, set off a tense 3 1/2 -hour standoff at the offices of the Spanish newspaper and the Miami Herald, which share a six-story building on the northern outskirts of downtown. Executive Editor Humberto Castelló was not in.
"He said, 'Just bring me the editor,' " said Gus Perez, director of operations for the newspapers, who confronted Varela on the sixth floor. "He said, 'I have 30 rounds.' I said, 'I'm really asking you to point that at the floor,' and he did."
Perez said he had been told that Varela was carrying a "toy gun," and police corroborated that later, saying it resembled a MAC-11. Authorities added that Varela was also carrying a knife.
As Perez spoke to Varela, about a dozen Nuevo Herald staffers were directed to leave the building, Perez said. Scores of other employees had already made it outside.
"When I came back to my office from the cafeteria, I just saw a crowd of people coming toward me saying, 'Get out, get out,' " said Tanya Byng, 43, an accounts manager.
As helicopters hovered, knots of spectators and evacuated employees formed outside the building, though there was some fear that anyone in the vicinity could have become a target.
"If he turns into a sniper suddenly, then we've got a problem," said Detective Delrish Moss, a police spokesman.
Eventually, a police negotiator reached Varela by phone and coaxed him into giving up. No one was injured.
"I just calmed him to the point to where he realized this was inappropriate behavior," said police negotiator Serafin Ordonez.
Varela, 50, was charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a firearm and was being held on $22,500 bond, jail officials told the Associated Press.
He apparently was disgruntled by some ethics issues and the "way the newspaper was being run," Ordonez said. "He's an intelligent man, and he realized this was not appropriate behavior."
According to the Miami Herald, Varela spoke disjointedly. "You are speaking with the new director of the newspaper, and I'm here to unmask the true conflicts in the newspaper," the newspaper quoted Varela as saying. "They laugh at exiles here. There are problems with payment."
The exact nature of his complaints could not be immediately determined.
El Nuevo Herald has undergone repeated upheavals in recent months, most of them involving Cuban American politics and the relationship between El Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald.
Earlier this fall, El Nuevo Herald fired two writers and a freelancer amid a controversy over reporters working for Radio Marti and TV Marti, which are run by the U.S. government. But then the publisher of the two newspapers resigned, and the three were hired back.
During the standoff, Varela demanded the resignations of Castelló and Miami Herald Executive Editor Tom Fiedler, according to the Miami Herald.
The Miami Herald building was the scene of gunfire last year, when, in July, former city commissioner Arthur E. Teele Jr. fatally shot himself in the lobby after asking to speak with a Herald columnist. Teele had been under investigation, suspected of corruption and fraud.
Varela, who was born in Cuba, has been the newspaper's cartoonist for several years. His most recent work appeared Friday. Titled, in Spanish, "The Biggest Sale of the Year," it showed shoe prints going in, presumably to a store, and prints of bare feet coming out.