The Latin Grammys are coming to Los Angeles on Tuesday under a very dark cloud.

When organizers recently moved the annual awards from Miami to L.A., claiming protesters might harm attendees including Cuban artists who embrace Fidel Castro's communist regime -- they managed to reject freedom of speech and sanction tyranny.

Cuban exiles had planned to protest against Cuban artists attending the ceremony who support Castro's totalitarian rule. The Cuban American National Foundation's protest plans included people -- on the steps of Miami's Freedom Tower -- dressed in black standing in silence with tape over their mouths and a black banner saying, "Freedom for Cuba."

Such demonstrations strike fear in the hearts and minds of the Latin Grammy organizers.

"No one had any desire for a confrontation," Juan Perez Franco, president of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association, told reporters. "What we wanted to do, as was our right, was to protest peacefully against these musicians, who are no less than ambassadors for Castro's tyranny."

Franco is right. The notion that those who fled communist Cuba pose a danger to those who support one of the world's most brutal regimes underscores the twisted logic of the event's organizers.

The Latin Grammys' philosophy: The artist who champions Cuba's communist state -- which tortures, imprisons and executes artists -- is welcome, while those who denounce Castro's regime -- most of whom have lived under communism -- are not welcome.

The last time communists came to Los Angeles with such a fuss was Sept. 19, 1959, when Los Angeles Mayor Norris Poulson snubbed Nikita "We will bury you" Khrushchev during the Soviet premier's visit to America.

Between his historic trips to Granada Hills and the set of the Sinatra/MacLaine film "The Can-Can," which he denounced as vulgar, there were no crowds along the travel route, and Khrushchev's limousine was met with not one wave -- only jeers. The world's communist leader was refused admittance to Disneyland.

Even some in Hollywood once found communism morally abhorrent. 20th Century Fox studio chief Spyros Skouros, a Greek immigrant, snapped at the Soviet leader: "Your country is the greatest monopoly the world has ever known."

Today's Hollywood, where streams of celebrities visit Cuba and endorse Castro's regime, is run by those who are more likely to regard Cuba as an isle of happy worker peasants dancing to salsa music.

Latin Grammy organizers ought to consider this year's Emmy-nominated true story of Cuban musician Arturo Sandoval, "For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story."

Andy Garcia's elegy to freedom chronicles Sandoval's daring defection -- aided by jazz great Dizzy Gillespie -- and demonstrates how the Communist Party uses the artist as a pawn while it strips him of every shred of integrity.

How pathetic, in this unreported context, that Michael Greene, president and CEO of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences and the Latin Recording Academy, denounced Miami's protesters by saying: "Having to run that gantlet (of exiles) is demeaning at best and dangerous at worst."

Dangerous? To whom? To artists who explicitly embrace one of the bloodiest regimes left on Earth?

Apparently, Greene is unprepared to contemplate the depth of depravity and danger posed by the communist state. Imagine how demeaning it is to have one's torturers paraded before him with the blessing of an artistic association in what's supposed to be the land of the free.

No flood of propaganda via Cuba's artists will provide Cubans with what they urgently need most: individual rights.

By featuring performers who approve of Cuba's wicked methods and refusing to face free speech against Cuba, the Latin Grammys as an artist's organization are unmasked as a colossal fraud.

The Latin Grammys deserve the scorn of Los Angeles, Miami and everywhere men, women and children are free.

Scott Holleran is a free-lance writer in Southern California and a frequent contributor to the Daily News. Write to him by e-mail at sholleranearthlink.net.