A North Korean colonel who spent two decades going on European shopping sprees for his country's rulers said Thursday the late dictator Kim Il Sung lived in luxury while many people struggled to survive in his impoverished communist nation, according to AP.

Kim Jong Ryul, who spent 16 years under cover in Austria, also described how the ''great leader'' and his son and successor Kim Jong Il spent millions pampering and protecting themselves with Western goods - everything from luxury cars, carpets and exotic foods, to monitors that can detect heartbeats of people hiding behind walls and gold-plated handguns.

AP reported that the colonel's account - told in a new book by Austrian journalists Ingrid Steiner-Gashi and Dardan Gashi - shows the deep divide between the lifestyles of the North Korean leadership and their citizens, who sometimes must subsist eating tree bark, knowing they will be sent to labor camps if they criticize the government.

Kim said this injustice was what motivated him in October 1994 to fake his death at the end of one of his trips and start a new, secret life in Austria in the hope that the oppressive regime would crumble within years, AP reported.

Kim Il Sung died in 1994, after grooming his son for years to replace him.

With no change in sight in North Korea's leadership, the colonel decided to come clean and tell his story.

''Without this book, I didn't want to die,'' he told AP. ''Now I can die with a clear conscience.''

Kim Jong Ryul said the late dictator had dozens of sprawling villas - some of them built underground - filled with crystal chandeliers, silk wallpaper and costly furniture.

In some of the villas, Kim - who had studied mechanical engineering in the former German Democratic Republic - even developed special ventilation systems which, in the event of a nuclear attack, would continue to function and act as filters, the colonel told AP.

It was in these palatial homes that Kim Il Sung and his family would feast on an immense array of fine foods - including Austrian specialties.

''He only ate foreign food,'' the colonel said. ''In Vienna, there was a special attache, a friend of mine, who only procured special foreign food for the dictator.''

AFP reported the colonel?s comment that North Korea's dictatorial regime is unlikely to fall anytime soon.

"It's unthinkable," said Kim Jong Ryul, a former colonel on Kim Jong Il's personal security detail, told AFP.

"Now, just like when I fled, North Korea is a horrible, false, two-faced dictatorship," Kim Jong Ryul said, according to AFP.

-The Korean Herald/Asia News Network