Hti: Haiti on the brink?

The pile of garbage behind the spot where Marie Joseph sells tins of tomato paste started out small, the usual primordial goo that coats this grimy capital's streets.

But in the two months since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected leader, was forced from power by an armed rebellion, the pile has swelled like a rapacious tumor in the heart of downtown.

"I have never seen anything like this," Joseph said last week, squatting near the 12-foot-high pile, wrinkling her nose at the stench. "How can we live like this?"

Difficult as it may be to believe, people here say, life has gotten worse in the past two months.

Mounds of garbage choke the streets. Electricity in the capital has been scarce for weeks. The police force has fallen deeper into disarray and crime has spiked, with a rash of kidnappings aimed at wealthy businesspeople. The price of rice, the Haitian staple, has crept up by a third here and doubled in some other parts of the country.

A senior Western diplomat said the biggest concern now was that the interim government, led by Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, will face mass unrest over the deteriorating conditions, unrest that Aristide's supporters could use to reignite clashes with rebels, who still occupy large swaths of the country, despite the presence of 3,600 foreign troops.

Other than small, symbolic handovers, supporters of the former president and rebels have both clung steadfastly to their weapons. If violence flares, the diplomat said, the government might not survive the next two or three months.

It would help if Haitians themselves would take the initiative and begin to clean up their cities.