Ethiopia's top judge flees country

I knew the regime in Ethiopia was bad. From censorship to outright massacres.

But it's not just bloggers, journalists and opposition figures who have much to fear. Even the president of the Supreme Court has fled Meles Zenawi's dictatorship, even comparing it to its infamous predecessor: Mengitsu's Derg.

"The difference is these guys [Meles' regime] are wise... These people kill whoever they feel like and then ask: 'Who killed them?'", he said.

And he's right. These guys are wiser. Meles and his accomplices have avoided the anti-western rhetoric used by Robert Mugabe. That's why he hasn't attracted a fraction of the international condemnation of Zimbabwe's thug-in-chief.

Meles learned an important lesson: if you temper your propaganda, you can get away with a lot more.