GUA MUSANG, Jan 11 ― Now fewer than 200, the Mendriq people were among the first settlers in peninsular Malaysia, but are fast disappearing, partly due to their tendency to avoid confrontation.
The aversion to conflict is adding another level of threat following the worst floods here in recent history, as the tribe is tamely allowing surrounding Malay villages to pilfer the already inadequate relief supplies they get, activists alleged yesterday.
“The problem with the tribe is it does not really have a leader. So, they do not have anybody to represent its plight,” an activist with the Village Network of Kelantan Orang Asli (JKOAK) called Mustaffa told Malay Mail Online.
“They are also the kind of people who would just stay quiet. It is in their nature,” he added, when met during a flood relief effort in Kg Parik in Kuala Betis here.
Kg Kuala Lah is located nearly 40km north of Gua Musang on the way to Dabong in Kuala Krai, and close to villages such as Kg Pulau Setelu, Kg Meranto, and Kg Bertam.
Mustaffa, a member of the much larger Temiar tribe, claimed that the many floods relief items from volunteers meant for Kg Kuala Lah were first passed to the Malay villages that surround it.
Often, this meant that the aid never reaches the village, he claimed.
“They are much more shy than the usual Orang Asli. They are not the type to confront others and fight,” Orang Asli rights activist Siti Kasim said.
“So when others take their stuff, they would not fight back. If people do not give them any aid, they would not demand it.”
This “shyness” is also prevalent in the Batek people, who inhabit the Kuala Koh National Park that straddles the border of Kelantan and Pahang.
During the mission joined by Malay Mail Online, the volunteers who were trying to reach the Batek group had to be escorted by a JKOAK activist to avoid arousing any suspicion.
“They feel more at ease seeing one of their own,” Siti said, referring to the Orang Asli.
The Batek and Mendriq tribes both belong to the Semang, a Negrito indigenous people group in Peninsular Malaysia. They are mostly nomadic hunter-gatherers with animist beliefs.
Orang Asli polled by Malay Mail Online during our visit were largely frustrated by the lack of flood relief response of the federal agency Orang Asli Affairs Department (Jakoa), leading them to seek aid from civil societies and activists on their own.
The monsoonal floods that have ravaged several states including Kelantan are arguably the most devastating in recent history and had displaced over a quarter of a million people.
