The word \u201crafters\u201d became global in the summer of 1994 when, in fragile boats, more than 30,000 Cubans went to sea. It was not long after the maps changed color, in the <\/span>Special Period<\/b><\/a>, the code with which Fidel Castro designated the <\/span>mamellazo<\/span><\/i> (blow) to the forehead in 1990. \u201cSave the Revolution and save socialism\u201d were two expressions that Cubans had not heard before. Nor a third one: \u201ccollective pots.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That stampede received the name of \u201cRafters Crisis.\u201d By mid-August 1994, more than 6,000 had arrived in the United States, compared with 3,200 who had emigrated that way during the entire previous year.<\/span><\/p>\n In 1995, President Bill Clinton implemented what would become known as the \u201cdry foot\/wet foot policy.\u201d Only rafters who made landfall would be accepted into the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n During the crisis, with the refusal to receive them once they were rescued from the Straits of Florida, since the same year of 1994 they had begun to be sent to an alien, but not unknown, location: the <\/span>Guant\u00e1namo Naval Base<\/b><\/a>. Until then, its facilities had been assigned by order of <\/span>Reagan to Haitians<\/b><\/a> intercepted near the coast of Florida (1981); \u201csafe haven\u201d policy.<\/span><\/p>\n