The Washington Post - 18.09.2019

A14 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 , 2019

BY PAMELA CONSTABLE

AND SUSANNAH GEORGE

charikar, afghanistan —
President Ashraf Ghani stepped
out of an armored car, accepted
bouquets from costumed school-
girls and strode onto the stage of
an outdoor campaign rally just
before noon Tuesday, beaming
and raising his arms as thousands
of p eople cheered and waved min-
iature A fghan f lags.
Moments l ater, a suicide bomb-
er on a motorcycle detonated out-
side the entrance to the event, a
quarter-mile away, killing 26 peo-
ple and wounding more than 30.
Ghani and his running mate in the
Sept. 28 elections, Amrullah
Saleh, were unharmed.
Less than a n hour afterward, in
Kabul, t he capital 3 5 miles south, a
second suicide bombing near the
U.S. Embassy and the Afghan De-
fense Ministry killed 22 people
and wounded 38, officials said.
The attacks, both claimed by Ta li-
ban insurgents, made Tuesday t he
deadliest day for civilians in Af-
ghanistan since U.S.-Taliban
peace talks c ollapsed Sept. 8.
The pair of bombings also in-
jected a new l evel of alarm into the
presidential race, which the Ta li-
ban has denounced and vowed to
disrupt. A Ta liban statement Tues-
day said t he group had t argeted “a
rally f or the fake p residential elec-
tion” and noted that it had previ-
ously warned people to stay away
from campaign rallies and other
election events.
The attacks came one day after
a U.S. Special Forces soldier was
killed b y small-arms f ire d uring a n
operation in Wardak province, an
insurgent-infested area 30 miles

south of Kabul. U.S. military offi-

cials said U.S. Army Sgt. 1st

Class Jeremy W. Griffin, 41, of

Greenbrier, Te nn., died of his

wounds.

Griffin’s death raised to 17 the

number of U.S. combat fatalities

in Afghanistan this year, al-

ready higher than the 13 combat

deaths in all of 2018. More than

2,400 U.S. service members have

died in the conflict s ince 2 001.

Until early this month, U.S.-

Ta liban peace talks seemed to be

nearing a framework agreement

in which the United States would

have withdrawn about 5,

troops in the coming months in

exchange for Ta liban officials

agreeing to renounce al-Qaeda

and prevent it from operating on

Afghan soil.

The Ghani government has re-

mained determined to hold elec-

tions despite President Trump’s

abrupt decision to cancel t he talks

and public concerns about vio-

lence. Officials have pledged to

protect the polls with about

70,000 security forces, but they

have also decided to close more

than 2,500 of about 7,400 polling

sites in provinces where insur-

gents are active. The Ta liban is

estimated to control or influence

nearly half of the country’s 400

districts, m ost of t hem rural.

Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford

Jr., chairman of t he Joint Chiefs o f

Staff, s aid Tuesday that the United

States was focused on supporting

the Afghan government in hold-

ing the elections before making

any decisions about withdrawing

American troops from the nation.

“We [are] going to focus on the

elections,” he said. “The most im-

portant thing is the political thing

in Afghanistan and making sure

that to the extent possible we are

supporting the [Afghan security

forces] and maximizing the num-

ber of people who have access to

the p olls.”

Ghani, who is seeking a second

five-year term, has campaigned

steadily, flying to more than a

dozen provinces t o hold r allies. All

have been held under heavy secu-

rity, with attendees searched mul-

tiple times.

The event i n Charikar, held on a

field inside a police training com-

pound, was the first to be directly

targeted. Health officials said

women and children were among

the v ictims. The town is in Parwan

province, one of four among Af-

ghanistan’s 3 4 provinces that elec-

tion officials had expected to be

the s afest.

On July 28, the first day of the

campaign period, the Taliban det-

onated a truck bomb outside the

Kabul office of Saleh, Ghani’s run-

ning-mate and a n outspoken anti-

Ta liban figure. The bomb killed 30

people and wounding more than

50.

The group also claimed a car

bombing Sept. 5 in Kabul that

killed 12 people, including a U.S.

service member. The Taliban has

since hinted it would be open to

reviving talks, but its chief negoti-

ator said last week that if U.S.

forces do not leave, it would keep

fighting “ for a hundred years.”

The threat of violence, com-

bined with uncertainty about

whether the election would be

held, has severely limited cam-

paigning for most of the other 16

candidates in the race. Abdullah

Abdullah, the government’s chief

executive and Ghani’s top chal-

lenger, has held a handful of out-

door events along with others in a

secured convention hall in Kabul.

But in some parts of the coun-

try, t here h as been almost no cam-

paigning at all. Officials in several

conflicted provinces said t hey had

not heard of any events by candi-

dates. Some said people were dis-

couraged by violence and fraud in

previous elections and more fo-

cused on the need to end t he fight-

ing.

“People do want to vote, but it

overlapped with the p eace process

and that lowered public enthusi-

asm,” s aid Nehmatullah Ghafari, a

legislator in Helmand province, a

Ta liban stronghold in the south-

west. “There will b e voting in some

areas, but in others the Ta liban

can easily disrupt things, so the

turnout w ill be very low.”

In Charikar, where thousands

of people including women and

families had walked to the Ghani

rally, many expressed excitement

about the event. Mari, 32, a moth-

er of four who did not give h er last

name, said that her brother, a sol-

dier, had been killed by the Tali-

ban, and that her husband is de-

ployed w ith the a rmy in Helmand.

“I want to see peace and quiet

and normal life return to this

land,” she said. “I worry about my

husband all the time. Mr. Ghani

has promised to bring peace, but

still the country has no security.

I’m not s ure whether I am going to

vote for him or not.”

Several hours later, news of the

bombing spread rapidly in the

streets of Charikar, a bustling

town on highway from Kabul.

Men milled in the main bazaar,

angry and upset. Ambulances

stuck in traffic plied their sirens

impatiently, adding to the din.

“People are afraid to go to the

rallies because of suicide bomb-

ers,” said Ta j Mohammed Sadeqi,

60, a shopkeeper. “Peace is more

important than a presidential

election. Ghani has not even been

able to secure his own election

rally.”

[email protected]

[email protected]

George reported from Kabul. Sayed

Salahuddin contributed to this report.

Bombings in Kabul, at campaign rally kill dozens

HEDAYATULLAH AMID/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK

Afghan security officials inspect the scene of a suicide bombing Tuesday targeting a campaign rally for

President Ashraf Ghani in Charikar. Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack.

BY CHICO HARLAN

AND STEFANO PITRELLI

rome — The Vatican’s criminal
prosecutors have requested the
indictment of a priest accused of
abusing an altar boy at a youth
seminary steps away from St. Pe-
ter’s Basilica — a rare case involv-
ing claims of abuse within the

city-state’s walls.

A Vatican statement Tuesday

said prosecutors were also seek-

ing an indictment of the youth

seminary’s former rector for “aid-

ing and abetting” the alleged

abuse.

The indictments indicate that

the church is moving forward on a

case reportedly covered up for

years, though the Vatican did not

say when a trial might begin, nor

did it provide details about the

accusations against the Rev. Ga-

briele Martinelli and the former

rector, the Rev. Enrico Radice.

Critics of how the Catholic

Church has handled abuse cases

will be watching to see how trans-

parent the Vatican process will be.

The allegations of abuse at St.

Pius X Pre-Seminary date to 2012.

They were reported first by Ital-

ian journalists in 2017 a nd then by

the Associated Press last year.

According to the AP, teenage

altar boy Kamil Jarzembowski ac-

cused an older seminarian —

Martinelli — of molesting his

roommate. Several bishops inves-

tigated, the AP said, and yet the

victim was never interviewed and

police were never called in.

Ultimately, Jarzembowski was

kicked out of the seminary, while

Martinelli was made a priest.

In correspondence with The

Washington Post this year, Carlo

Maria Viganò, a Pope Francis crit-

ic and former Vatican ambassa-

dor in Washington, highlighted

the case as an example of the

church hierarchy’s inadequate re-

sponse to abuse allegations.

Viganò, citing “firsthand infor-

mation,” s aid a preliminary inves-

tigation carried out by a priest

was inhibited by superiors. Vi-

ganò said Jarzembowski and two

other seminarians described the

accusations in writing to cardi-

nals and, in 2014, to Pope Francis.

“One of the victims was a boy,

allegedly abused for five consecu-

tive years, starting at age 13,”

Viganò said.

The request for indictments

comes shortly after an August

article in Il Messaggero, the major

Roman daily, said local prosecu-

tors were wrapping up their own

investigation into “supposed acts

of abuse” at the youth seminary.

Francesco Zanardi, an Italian

survivor of clergy sexual abuse

and president of the Abuse Net-

work, said his association had

helped Jarzembowski file charges

with the district attorney’s office

in Rome.

The Vatican, in its statement,

said the indictments are possible

because Francis in July granted a

special provision for the matter to

go forward, circumventing

statute-of-limitations con-

straints.

[email protected]

Priests facing trial over

alleged abuse in Vatican

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