Embattled Musician, George Treasure who fled Uganda recounts gruesome torture.
Ugandan recording artist cum producer George Serunkuuma alias George Treasure has opened up about his ordeal while in the hands of security operatives before he fled to the United States of America.
Serunkuuma recounted to our reporter the pain and torture he endured at one of the infamous safehouses in Uganda after he was picked from a recording studio in Makindye, a suburb of the capital, Kampala.
Serunkuuma told this publication via WhatsApp that it had never crossed his mind his creativity, sensitivity and hunger for justice would propel him from his beloved motherland, Uganda and into the diaspora. “As a creative I tried to be use my gifts to speak for the oppressed, when a fellow artist, Bobi Wine came out to speak for the marginalized millions, I was able to rediscover my path and it was easy for me to identify with the People Power Movement,”
“Like any other Uganda, I was well aware of what was going on around, but being arrested for simply writing and producing music that calls for change made me realise it was hard to ignore the injust reality we found ourselves in,” he said
However, the talented artist says no charges were brought against him when he was arrested at an unknown detention facility where he was subjected to torture, and this continues to be a harrowing incident in his mind.
During his first rodeo with the state, he was quizzed about the People Power Movement that later blossomed into Uganda’s leading opposition party the National Unity Platform.
After three weeks in ‘unlawful’ detention, government succumbed to pressure from the public and parliament, Serunkuuma was released with several others. “I had seen the inside of a drone and a safe house which is part of things that can happen to anyone that craves change in Uganda,” he stated.
The decision to leave Kampala was not one Serunkuuma made lightly despite the long stretches in detention, beatings and threats to his life and family, he knew he was leaving behind family and friends. “The first arrest would lead to another, each being worse than the previous one. I remember being held at a warehouse in the middle of nowhere with other prisoners, I was beaten in roast-chicken style and degraded to a lesser human being,” he intimated.
Serunkuuma is among the many Ugandans that have since fled the country over human rights violations and concerns surrounding security operatives and government.
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