With Indonesia's 200 million people facing economic catastrophe, the conversation among foreign residents in Jakarta, the capital, is increasingly turning to their contingency plans for getting out of the country if the widespread rumours about serious social unrest in the coming days prove to be true.
One Western embassy has advised its citizens to keep $1,000 (£680) in cash available at all times and buy open airline tickets in case they have to leave quickly. Some foreign companies have already supplied their staff with open-ended air tickets to Singapore or Australia.
International companies have held staff meetings to decide what to do if there are serious street disorders. One soft drinks enterprise, for example, has instructed its expatriate employees to assemble in the lobby of the Shangri La Hotel in the city centre to travel by convoy to the airport if rioting becomes widespread. Schools with foreign children have told parents of pick-up plans in an alert.
In this tinderbox atmosphere, some frightened expatriates have even tinted their car windows so as not to attract attention to themselves in streets crowded with unemployed and possibly hungry people. Foreign residents attracted community resentment for allegedly buying up stocks of rice, noodles, oil and sugar during fears of shortages two weeks ago and were criticised in the conservative Observer newspaper for "buying anything they could stuff into their overcrowded trolleys".
The nervousness of the 63,000strong expatriate community is increasing because of the possibility of trouble breaking out after the Ramadan month of daylight fasting. This officially ends today with the traditional Idul Fitri holiday for which workers traditionally receive an extra month's wages.
Not only have few employees received the annual bonus from their companies, almost all of which are technically bankrupt, but tens of thousands will return to work after the weekend to find their jobs no longer exist.
Most of the estimated 8,500 Australians in Indonesia were counselled about possible unrest by the Australian embassy in Jakarta which took the unusual step of faxing the warning to citizens, companies and schools last week. The Australia New Zealand Association has strongly advised its nationals to keep American dollars at home.
Foreigners have also been hiring removal companies to store furniture or move valuable items out of the country as tensions rise. One official at Crown Removals said that they normally handled one foreign customer a day but it was now five, and they were booked for weeks ahead.
"We are telling them it is a smart move to put their expensive goods in a place like Singapore," a company consultant, Mr Michael Arnold, told the Herald Sun this week. "There is a lot of fear about. I've got $12,000 here in the office myself in case I need a plane ticket to get out in a hurry."
Opposition leader, Megawati Sukarnoputri, has warned about unrest over the country's economic crisis, which she said could take the form of food riots. Much of the apprehension gripping Indonesia results from the belief that political opposition to President Suharto's re-election as president in March will find expression on the streets in the absence of any alternative forum. The 76year-old president will almost certainly be nominated for a seventh term by the 1,000-member people's Consultative Assembly in March. President Suharto himself sees trouble ahead. He told Protestant church leaders on Wednesday that religious, ethnic and societal issues could easily spark social unrest, and appealed for calm in the country, whose population is 88 per cent Muslim and 8 per cent Christian. "Our nation may face a great difficulty and the nation's unity could be destroyed if it is neglected," Sularso Supater, chairman of the Indonesian Communion of Churches, quoted the president as saying.
Millions of people have fanned out across the archipelago of 17,500 islands stretching 3,000 miles along the equator to spend the Muslim holiday at their homes. Many who worked in Jakarta will not return after the holiday because of the shortage of jobs, said Paulus Wirutomo, a noted University of Indonesia sociologist. As a result, villages and towns will be packed with people who have no money or jobs.
On the other hand the Jakarta administration has warned that many of the estimated 2.5 million people who travelled out of the city for Idul Fitri will return with extended families, making the city more prone to rioting and crime. In this volatile situation ethnic Chinese shop-owners have become scapegoats. In central Java, the most populous island, hundreds of pupils from Islamic boarding schools rioted earlier this week on rumours of price rises in basic foods and fuel - due to the removal of subsidies in line with an economic reforms agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).