Once, I had an opportunity to visit my driver, a member of the military, who was in the hospital because of injury. The authorities were vexed that I wanted to see him, but I was able to overcome objections. As was my custom on hospital visits, I took bandages and antibiotics--basics. On this occasion, I was embarrassed to see that, unlike any other hospital I visited, this one looked as modern as any in Germany. It was equipped with the latest medical apparatus, such as magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound, electrocardiograms and X-ray machines. There are two worlds in North Korea, one for the senior military and the elite; and a living hell for the rest.

I didn't see any improvement in the availability of food and medicine in any of the hospitals I worked in during my entire stay. One can only imagine what conditions are like in the "reform institutions," where whole families are imprisoned when any one member does or says something that offends the regime. These camps are closed to foreigners.

My initial naiveté that the starvation was the result of weather conditions disappeared when I saw that much of the food aid was being denied those who needed it most. Before Cap Anamur came to North Korea, other agencies such as Oxfam and CARE pulled out because they weren't allowed to distribute aid directly to the people. They had to turn it over to the authorities, who took complete charge of distribution. Monitoring is impossible. Nobody really knows where the aid is going, except that it is not going to the starving citizens.

The system's beneficiaries are members of the Communist Party and high-ranking military personnel. In Pyongyang, these people enjoy a comfortable lifestyle--obscene in the context--with fancy restaurants and nightclubs. In diplomatic shops, they can buy such delicacies as Argentine steak, with which they supplement their supplies of food diverted from humanitarian aid. In the countryside, starving people, bypassed by the aid intended for them, forage for food. Pyongyang is fooling the world.

As a German, I know too well the guilt of my grandparents' generation for its silence under the Nazis. I feel it is my duty to expose this satanic regime, which has deified "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il, just as it did his late father.

Even though virtually the entire North Korean economy is geared to the military, we should help ordinary citizens. But this must be on condition that aid goes to the deserving. Foreign NGOs, journalists and diplomats must be free to travel unannounced to the provinces to ensure that aid isn't misdirected. Only pressure on North Korea can save lives. The people can't help themselves. They are brainwashed, and too afraid to be able to overthrow their rulers. That's the medical diagnosis. Only the outside world can administer the right therapy, and bring about a reformation of this depraved nation.