BY LUISA YANEZ

 A coalition of more than 100 grass-roots organizations has emerged as a new force in the exile community with a mission to oppose the participation of performers from Cuba at next month's Latin Grammys.

 The organizations range from groups with hundreds of members to some with just a few. The coalition has gathered momentum in recent days as the Latin Grammys
 controversy has escalated.

 However, missing from the list is the preeminent exile organization -- the Cuban American National Foundation.

 CANF has sat out the haggling by the coalition for permission to demonstrate closer to AmericanAirlines Arena's red-carpet entrance. But CANF has indicated it will send a different kind of anti-Castro message the night of the event.

 ``Having a lot of people on the street demonstrating, that's what we had during Elián, and what kind of message did we send out to the world?'' said Joe García, a CANF spokesman.

 The group's chairman, Jorge Mas Santos, supports the show, which he helped bring to Miami. The decision to support the awards contributed to the resignation of more than 20 CANF board members and directors Aug. 7.

 ``No. The foundation hasn't called to join us,'' said Emilio Izquierdo Jr., 53, who has emerged as the voice of the coalition, whose home base is Casa del Preso in Little Havana. Sunday's meeting to vote on a compromise protest site was held there.

 Izquierdo is a leader of a group called Asociación de Ex-Confinados Políticos de las U.M.A.P., a group of survivors of Cuban detention camps.

 ``This is about everybody's right to express their opinion,'' Izquierdo said. ``We're all acting together, but independently.''

 Other groups participating in the protest coalition are veterans of local exile demonstrations.

 Mothers Against Repression, a group of women who wear black and were once a staple outside the home of Elián González's relatives in Little Havana, joined the
 coalition this weekend and attended Sunday's meeting.

 ``We want to be there to make a statement against Castro,'' said Ileana Puig, the group's vice president.

 Another group throwing its support behind the coalition is the paramilitary group Alpha 66, the exile community's oldest organization. The group is best known for its
 military training exercises in the Florida Everglades. Alpha 66 leader Andrés Nazario Sargén also attended Sunday's meeting.

 Also taking part: Vigilia Mambisa, the exile community's most vigilant protest group.

 One of its recent protests took place outside Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, during the visit earlier this year by the king of Spain. Exiles have criticized Spain for having business ties with the Cuban government.

 Another group is Comandos F-4, which claims it leads clandestine missions to Cuba. Leader Rodolfo Frómeta said Sunday his group's latest mission was finding and harassing in Havana accused Cuban spy Juan Pablo Roque, who in the mid-1990s married a Miami woman while covering his identity as a spy.

 ``We found out where he lived and trashed the car the Cuban government had given him,'' Frómeta said proudly. ``The government had to move him to another home.''

 Roque was indicted by federal authorities in Miami, but had already fled to the island.

 Whatever their method of battling the Cuban government, groups are united in the Latin Grammys action, Izquierdo said. They are protesting the presence and promotion of Cuban artists financed by the Cuban government, not the Latin Grammys.

 Seven Cuban artists have been nominated for awards in the Latin Grammys, including salsero Issac Delgado, jazz pianist Chucho Valdés and singers Celina González and Omara Portuondo. It's unclear yet whether they will receive permission to travel to Miami.

 ``When you have an artist who is nominated for something like a Grammy, their CD usually becomes a best seller. That will happen to the product of these Cuban artists nominated,'' Izquierdo said. ``But that money generated by marketing an artist nominated for a Latin Grammy will not go to the artists. It will go the Cuban government. That is why we're protesting.''

 The Latin Grammys on Sept. 11 will reach millions of viewers around the world. International media are expected to be present in force.

 Izquierdo said he is among the coalition's leaders who sought the help of the American Civil Liberties Union when they felt their efforts to get a permit were being delayed.

 Izquierdo, who makes his living as a limousine driver, considers himself a veteran of freedom-of-speech wars. He has been arrested twice for standing up for his rights, he said.

 His first arrest was in Cuba in the 1960s for ``improper conduct.'' He was practicing Catholicism, he said. His second arrest came outside the Miami Arena on Oct. 9, 1999, he said, because he unfurled a Cuban flag and ran up the steps of the arena with it while a concert by the Cuban group Los Van Van was under way.

 At that event, where protesters were allowed to congregate near the entrance, some concertgoers were pelted with rocks and size D batteries, along with insults.
 Izquierdo said protesters such as he were also taunted by those attending the concert.

 ``Some came wearing [Ernesto] Ché Guevara T-shirts, and they were yelling pro-communist epithets at us,'' Izquierdo said. ``That was offensive to me.''

 That's why he decided to make his statement by running up the steps carrying his country's flag, he said. He was quickly tackled and arrested by Miami police officers.

 The city's experience with the Los Van Van concert is likely prompting authorities this time to try to curtail the demonstrators' access to guests at the Latin Grammys, he concedes.

 ``I'm ready to be arrested again if I feel my rights to express my point of view as a Cuban patriot are violated,'' he said.

                                    © 2001