🇮🇹 “Deportees,” One Says? The Rather Fascist Rebranding of Ethiopian POWs
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By Sewasew Teklemariam Ethiopian Tribune Columnist
In the rather extensive catalogue of imperial doublespeak, precious few terms have matured quite so poorly as “deportees” a euphemism now being cheerfully plastered onto Ethiopian patriots who were, rather inconveniently for the narrative, prisoners of war. Courtesy of Mussolini’s fascist regime in the 1930s, these distinguished officials weren’t precisely whisked away for a spot of Mediterranean R&R. They were rather more kidnapped, manacled, and shipped off to godforsaken Italian islands Pantelleria, Ponza, and Asinara where their principal liberty consisted of a rather thorough decomposition.
Yet modern historiography, ever so keen to hoover up colonial untidiness, has taken to dubbing them “deportees.” As though they were merely rowdy tourists who’d rather overstayed their welcome. Deportees? One does wonder, is that genuinely the terminology we’re settling for?
Let’s be frightfully clear: these weren’t civilians relocated for the sake of administrative tidiness. They were military and political leaders, amongst them Ras Imru, Blatta Tekle, and sundry other dignitaries, nabbed during Italy’s rather beastly invasion of Ethiopia. Their removal wasn’t bureaucratic housekeeping; it was strategic decapitation of Ethiopian resistance. Calling them “deportees” is rather like calling a kidnapping victim a weekend guest.
The term “POW” (Prisoner of War) carries proper legal heft. It implies Geneva Conventions, international finger-wagging, and one dares hope accountability. “Deportee,” conversely, amounts to a semantic shoulder-shrug. It sanitises the violence, obliterates the dignity of resistance, and lets fascist Italy slip away with linguistic sleight of hand.
And who, one inquires, championed this rather convenient rebranding? Historians with a fetish for neutrality, perhaps. Or archivists who prefer their colonial records sans bloodstains. Either way, the narrative has been thoroughly hijacked not dissimilar to the patriots themselves.
However, not all historians are playing this particular game. Ethiopian scholars and cultural organisers have begun pushing back rather firmly. Projects such as From Oblivion to Memory, spearheaded by Elfy Getachew Nouvellon, have reframed these figures as prisoners of war, not administrative inconveniences. The initiative even brought descendants back to Asinara Island, where a reconciliation ceremony laid rather bare the trauma and injustice of their forced removal.
Figures like Yeweinshet Beshah-Woured, who returned to Asinara after 88 years, have described the conditions of confinement and the psychological toll of exile. “This place was absolutely teeming with prisoners back then,” she recalled, “with Ethiopian women and children crammed into a single house, with only one point of contact where we could procure food.” Her testimony, alongside others, has helped Ethiopian historians reassert the POW framing, particularly in public discourse and commemorative journalism.
Still, numerous academic texts—particularly those with a fondness for European archives continue employing “deportees” without so much as a raised eyebrow. This silence is rather telling. It reflects how archival bias and Eurocentric historiography can perpetuate misleading terminology, even when lived experiences and oral histories are positively screaming otherwise.
It’s rather time to call a prisoner a prisoner. Ethiopia’s wartime captives weren’t deportees they were POWs, forcibly removed by an occupying force. Anything less constitutes historical malpractice.
So the next time someone refers to Ras Imru as a “deportee,” do be sure to remind them: he wasn’t deported, he was detained by fascists, on an island, in chains. And no, that’s hardly a Mediterranean spa break. That’s a war crime.
