Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente was born on June 19, 1957. He is a Mexican rebel, former military leader, and spokesperson for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) during the Chiapas conflict. He is also known for opposing capitalism and neoliberalism. He is widely recognized by his code name, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, which is often shortened to Subcomandante Marcos. He has used other names, including Delegate Zero during the Other Campaign (2006–2007), Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano from 2014 to 2023, and Capitán Insurgente Marcos since 2023. His title, Capitán (Captain), reflects his position under the leadership of indigenous commanders in the EZLN's General Command.

Born in Tampico, Tamaulipas, Marcos earned a degree in Philosophy and Literature from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He taught at the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM) in the early 1980s. During this time, he joined a guerrilla group called the National Liberation Forces (FLN) before moving to Chiapas in 1984.

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) was formed in the Lacandon Jungle in 1983 as a self-defense group to protect the Mayan people of Chiapas from land loss. Though not Mayan himself, Marcos became the group's military leader. When the EZLN began its rebellion on January 1, 1994, he served as its spokesperson.

Marcos is known for wearing a ski mask and holding a pipe. He led the EZLN's 1994 uprising, helped negotiate peace, and guided the Zapatistas' efforts for many years. After a government ceasefire, the Zapatistas shifted from being guerrilla fighters to a social movement, and Marcos transitioned from a military leader to a public relations leader. He spoke to the public, wrote messages, held press conferences, organized events, and toured Mexico to gain support for the Zapatistas.

In 2001, Marcos led a group of Zapatista leaders to Mexico City to speak about indigenous rights in the Mexican Congress. In 2006, he toured Mexico again as part of The Other Campaign. In 2014, he said the persona of Subcomandante Marcos was "a hologram" and no longer existed, which many believed meant he was stepping down as a leader.

Marcos writes many books and messages. His work often criticizes capitalism and supports indigenous rights. He has also written poetry, children's stories, and a crime novel. His writings are translated into at least 14 languages.

Early life

Guillén was born on June 19, 1957, in Tampico, Tamaulipas, to Alfonso Guillén and Maria del Socorro Vicente. He was the fourth of eight children. Alfonso Guillén was a former elementary school teacher who owned a local chain of furniture stores. The family is often described as middle-class. In a 2001 interview with Gabriel García Márquez and Roberto Pombo, Guillén said his upbringing was middle-class and "without financial difficulties." He also mentioned that his parents encouraged his love for language and reading. When Guillén was very young, he learned about and admired Che Guevara, a feeling that lasted throughout his life.

Guillén attended high school at the Instituto Cultural Tampico, a Jesuit school in Tampico. He studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) during a time when the ideas of Louis Althusser were popular, which influenced his thesis. While completing his dissertation at UNAM, he began teaching at the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM). During this time, he met members of the Forces of National Liberation (FLN). Several important members of the FLN's Chiapas group, which later became the EZLN, worked at the UAM.

In 1984, Guillén left his academic job in Mexico City and traveled to the mountains of Chiapas. He wanted to help the poor, indigenous Mayan people organize and start a worker revolution against the Mexican bourgeoisie and the federal government. When Guillén shared his plan, the Chiapanecans looked at him and said they were not urban workers. They explained that, from their perspective, land was not property but the heart of their community.

Some people debate whether Guillén visited Nicaragua after the Sandinista Revolution in 1979. If he did, it is unclear how many times or in what role. No official documents, such as immigration records, have been found to confirm this. Nick Henck suggests Guillén "may have journeyed" to Nicaragua, but the evidence is "circumstantial."

Guillén's sister, Mercedes Guillén Vicente, was the Attorney General of the State of Tamaulipas from 2005 to 2006. She was also an important member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

The Zapatista Uprising

Marcos made his first public appearance on January 1, 1994, the same day the Zapatista uprising began. According to Marcos, this event was not planned. His original task was to secure the police headquarters in San Cristóbal de las Casas. However, when a subordinate was injured during the transport of weapons captured from the police station to the town square, Marcos took over the task and went to the square instead. As a group of foreign tourists gathered around Marcos, the only Zapatista who spoke English, others, including members of the press, joined them. Marcos interacted with tourists, townspeople, and reporters from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m., giving four interviews during that time.

This event quickly brought attention to Marcos. Henck notes that in the first three months of 1994, Marcos gave 24 interviews (about two per week) and participated in 10 days of peace negotiations with the government, during which he held nine press conferences.

In the following months, Marcos was interviewed by Ed Bradley for 60 Minutes and featured in Vanity Fair and Mexico's Poet Rebel. He also organized and hosted the August 1994 National Democratic Convention, which brought together 6,000 members of civil society to discuss peaceful ways to make Mexico freer, more just, and more democratic.

In early 1995, while Secretary of Interior Esteban Moctezuma was working in good faith to arrange peace talks with Marcos and the Zapatistas, Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (PGR) learned Marcos’s true identity from a former Zapatista, Subcomandante Daniel (alias Salvador Morales Garibay).

On February 9, 1995, President Ernesto Zedillo announced that Marcos had been identified as Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente and ordered the Mexican military to attack Zapatista territory in the Lacandon Jungle. Arrest warrants were issued for Marcos and other key Zapatista leaders.

This sudden betrayal of a previous peace agreement and ongoing secret negotiations caused several responses that forced Zedillo to stop the military offensive:

• Moctezuma resigned, but Zedillo refused and asked him to restore conditions for dialogue.
• Civil society organized three large demonstrations in Mexico City within one week. One rally had 100,000 participants, some of whom chanted “We Are All Marcos.”
• Marcos responded with written messages, criticizing the government’s actions and describing himself as a humble guerrilla leader. He later said, “It’s after the betrayal of 1995 that people remember us: Then the [Zapatista] movement took off.”

Additionally, Max Appedole, a childhood friend of Marcos, worked with Edén Pastora, a Nicaraguan leader, to prepare a report for government officials. The report highlighted Marcos’s peaceful goals and warned that attacking the Zapatistas could lead to more violence and instability.

As a result, on March 10, 1995, Zedillo and Moctezuma signed the “Presidential Decree for the Dialogue, Reconciliation and Peace with Dignity,” which was later approved by the Mexican Congress. Moctezuma sent Luis Maldonado to negotiate directly with the Zapatistas. These talks began on April 3, 1995.

By April 9, 1995, the basis for the Dialogue Protocol and the “Harmony, Peace with Justice and Dignity Agreement” was signed. On April 17, the Mexican government appointed Marco Antonio Bernal as Peace Commissioner in Chiapas, and peace talks began in San Andrés Larráinzar on April 22.

Political and philosophical writings

Marcos has written hundreds of letters and articles that explain his political and philosophical ideas. These writings, along with his essays, stories, and interviews, have been translated into many languages and published in numerous books and collections. Jorge Alonso notes that Marcos's work has been cited more than 10,000 times by researchers around the world. His writings and books about him have been used by scholars in many countries and in several languages.

Many people have written about Marcos's writing style, especially how he uses poetry and humor, including irony.

Marcos's work is known for its deep ideas and its use of stories based on myths to challenge colonial ideas and share Indigenous ways of thinking. These stories help him rethink ideas about revolution by including Mesoamerican beliefs, such as the idea that time is cyclical and that humans and nature are connected. For example, the character "Votán-Zapata," which combines the Mayan god Votán with the revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, shows how Indigenous and revolutionary traditions can work together to challenge colonial ideas and create new ideas about freedom and fairness.

La Historia de los Colores (The Story of Colors) appears to be a children's book and is one of Marcos's most-read works. It is based on a Mayan creation story and teaches about accepting differences and respecting diversity. The English version was originally planned with help from the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, but in 1999, the funding was canceled after a reporter shared information about the book with the organization's leader. The Lannan Foundation later helped fund the book, which won two Firecracker Alternative Book Awards.

In 2005, Marcos co-wrote a detective story called The Uncomfortable Dead with Paco Ignacio Taibo II. This crime novel includes messages supporting the environment, democracy, and fairness, and it opposes discrimination, capitalism, and globalization.

Some of Marcos's most important writings that explain his political ideas include "The Fourth World War Has Begun" (1997), also called "Seven Loose Pieces of The Global Jigsaw Puzzle"; "The Fourth World War" (1999); The Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle (2005); the four-part "Zapatistas and the Other: The Pedestrians of History" (2006); and his speeches in Critical Thought in the Face of the Capitalist Hydra and The Zapatistas' Dignified Rage: Final Public Speeches of Subcommander Marcos.

Marcos's writing has a political purpose and can be used to challenge others, as shown in a 2002 book called Our Word is Our Weapon, which includes his articles, poems, speeches, and letters.

Latin America's Pink Tide

Marcos has mixed views about Latin American leaders who were part of the Pink Tide movement. In 2007, he supported Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, but had uncertain feelings about Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez. Marcos called Chavez “disconcerting” and believed he was too militant, though he acknowledged Chavez made major changes in Venezuela. Marcos also criticized Brazil’s current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Nicaragua’s current president, Daniel Ortega, calling them traitors for not following their original goals. Ortega was someone Marcos once worked with as part of the Sandinistas.

In an earlier interview with Jesús Quintero, Marcos was asked about leaders like Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez, and Fidel Castro. He explained that he focuses on bottom-up politics, meaning changes should come from the people, not from leaders. When asked what it means to be a modern revolutionary, Marcos said society and the world must change from below. He also said people must change how they relate to each other, culture, art, and communication. Because of these beliefs, Marcos avoids calling himself a “revolutionary” and instead uses the term “rebel.” He believes revolutionaries want to change things from above, while rebels work to change the world without taking power.

In a statement, Marcos further explained that revolutionaries take power and keep it until another leader comes to power. Rebels, however, study and break down how power works. Even though Marcos prefers rebels, he still admires both Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.

Popularity

During the first seven years of the Zapatista uprising, Marcos became very well-known. People admired him because he was seen as a rebel fighting for the rights of those without power, and the media covered his actions widely, sometimes called "Marcos-mania." In 1994, he appeared on the TV show 60 Minutes and was compared to a modern-day Robin Hood.

From 1994 to 2001, reporters from around the world visited him to interview him and write about him. Many famous people, such as Oliver Stone, Naomi Klein, and Gabriel García Márquez, wanted to meet him. He also exchanged letters with well-known writers and thinkers, including John Berger and Carlos Fuentes. Events he led attracted thousands of people from different countries, including journalists, and his image appeared on many magazine covers, books, and DVDs.

In February 1995, the Mexican government revealed Marcos’s real name and issued an arrest order for him. This led to thousands of people in Mexico City marching and chanting, “We are all Marcos.”

In 1996, Marcos’s popularity and media presence grew. He met with famous people like Oliver Stone and hosted a global event called the Intercontinental Encuentro For Humanity and Against Neoliberalism, which brought together about 5,000 people from 50 countries. Some of these people published interviews with him.

Marcos was also supported by musicians and bands, including Rage Against the Machine and Manu Chao. Some of their songs included recordings of his speeches. His face was on the cover of an album by Thievery Corporation called Radio Retaliation.

In 2006, Marcos traveled across Mexico on the Other Campaign. Along the way, he was greeted by large crowds who cheered for him. His image appeared on T-shirts, posters, and badges.

By 2011, a Mexican historian named Enrique Krauze noted that Marcos remained popular among young people but was no longer seen as a role model.

In May 2014, Marcos gave a speech to thousands of people and media representatives. He explained that the character “Marcos” was created in 1994 to help the Zapatista movement gain attention. However, he later said that the character became more of a distraction than a representative of the movement. Because of this, the Zapatistas decided to stop using the Marcos identity.

Marcos has been compared to historical figures like Robin Hood, Emiliano Zapata, and Nelson Mandela because he was admired by many people in Mexico. He is often credited with bringing attention to the struggles of Mexico’s indigenous communities.

Marcos continues to be in the media and has been seen with celebrities. For example, he was photographed with Mexican actors Gael García Bernal, Ilse Salas, and Diego Luna in 2018 and 2019.