Marcos was radicalized by the Tlatelolco massacre ( 2 October 1968 ) of students and civilians by the Mexican federal government ; consequently , he became a militant in the Maoist National Liberation Forces . In 1983 , he went to the mountains of Chiapas to convince the poor , indigenous Mayan population to organize and launch a proletarian revolution against the Mexican bourgeoisie and the federal government . After hearing his proposition , the Chiapanecs " just stared at him , " and replied that they were not urban workers , and that from their perspective the land was not property , but the heart of the community . In the documentary '' A Place Called Chiapas '' ( 1998 ) , about his early days there , Subcommander Marcos said : There are several rumors that Marcos left Mexico in the mid-1980s to go to Nicaragua to serve with the Sandinistas under the '' nom de guerre '' El Mejicano . After leaving Nicaragua in the late 1980s , he returned to Mexico and helped form the EZLN with support from the Sandinistas and the Salvadoran leftist guerrilla group FMLN . Some believe that this contradicts the view that the first Zapatista organizers were in the jungle by 1983 , however it is known that the real founders of the EZLN '' foco '' were the brothers Fernando ( '' German '' ) and Cesar ( a.k.a. '' Pedro '' ) Yañez-Muñoz , who were previously part of the FLN guerrillas . Marcos took over the remnants of the FLN after Pedro was killed and German captured
Tlatelolco massacre
Tlatelolco massacre
Subcomandante Marcos