Rasulain and the Arada Steppe During the Armenian Genocide, July 1915 – April 1916
Building on Raymond Kévorkian's work on the Syrian and Mesopotamian 'destination areas,' Kaiser reconstructs the deportation zone around Rasulain and the Arada Steppe. Officially the Ottoman government claimed it meant to resettle Armenian deportees in the Zor district; in practice deportees were starved, abandoned in the desert, or massacred. Drawing on official Ottoman documentation alongside rare first-hand evidence from the Chechen community of Rasulain, Kaiser shows that district governor Ali Suad Bey began limited relief and settlement projects which central authorities then undid. Local Chechens opposed Armenian settlement on economic grounds, denounced deportees as alleged revolutionaries, and ultimately took a leading part in the massacres.