The Foreign Service Journal, September 2007

68 F OR E I GN S E R V I C E J OU R N A L / S E P T EMB E R 2 0 0 7 A F S A N E W S F or his courageous stand challenging the U.S. position on peacekeeping in Darfur, Ronald Capps was selected for the Rivkin Dissent Award. On the third anniversary of the out- break of the armed rebellion against the Sudanese government in Darfur, Capps transmitted a cable that, in the words of the embassy official who nominated him, “was as prescient as it was controversial.” Capps was serving as deputy chief of the political-economic section of Embassy Khartoum at the time. He was in direct con- tact with rebel groups in the area and he understood the complex political environ- ment. He warned that nei- ther the Darfur Peace Agreement nor the African Union force would stop the genocide in Darfur, despite strenuous support for both among U.S. officials at the highest levels. Correctly, Capps predicted that the rebel groups and armed Arab mili- tias would resist the disarma- ment provisions of any peace agreement and that the con- flict would spread across the Sudanese border to Chad. Capps did not simply criticize U.S. government policy; he proposed an alternative. He suggested a more muscular Western peacekeeping coalition, led by the U.S., to stabilize the security sit- uation. His message was titled “WhoWill Apologize?”—a refer- ence to President Clinton’s speech in Kigali four years after the Rwandan genocide, in which he apologized to the Rwandan peo- ple for the failures of American policy toward that horror. As Capps explains it, “President Clinton said, ‘Never again must we be shy in the face of evidence.’ I believe that in Darfur the evi- dence is clear. President Bush has said so, and two Secretaries of State have said so. I don’t want another American president to have to repeat Pres. Clinton’s performance. But primarily, I want to see the killing in Darfur stopped, and I think America has a duty to take action to stop it.” The insightful analysis of a complex political environment did and should give pause to policymakers, the nomination states, adding that the work done by Capps “remains as relevant and deserving of wide readership now as it did then. By challenging many of the U.S. assumptions about the Darfur crisis, Capps’ thoughtful argument can still help the U.S. refine its policy and achieve its humani- tarian goals in Darfur.” Capps tells AFSA News that he’s not sorry he wrote that cable, just sorry he had to write it. Ron Capps entered government service in 1983 as an enlisted soldier, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the cavalry in 1985. He spent nine years on active duty before joining the Foreign Service in 1994. His Foreign Service assignments have included Yaounde, Montreal, Pristina, Kigali, Ashraf (Iraq), Khartoum and Washington. After the 9/11 attacks, he was recalled to active duty in the military and on three mobilizations has served in Afghanistan, Darfur and N’Djamena. He is currently serving in the Office of African Analysis within the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. William R. Rivkin Award FOR A MID-LEVEL FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER Ronald Capps Ron Capps greeting commanders of the Sudan Liberation Army in Haskanita, South Darfur, in November 2005. Capps is shaking hands with Mini Minawi, who signed the Darfur Peace Agreement in 2006 and joined the government of Sudan. At left is Mariane Nolte of the U.N. 2007 AFSA CONSTRUCTIVE DISSENT AWARD WINNERS Ron Capps, at right, with former AFSA President John Limbert in Iraq. Capps riding in the back of a Sudan Liberation Army vehicle after 10 days of meetings in North Darfur. The SLA are taking him to a helicopter landing zone for extraction by the African Union Mission in Sudan.