During 2011, unreliable or non existent domestic air schedules have meant that reaching Harare from Bulawayo has become a major endeavour entailing six hours by road each way, to attend a simple meeting.35 Poor and/or expensive transport networks also mean that Bulawayo is now excluded on most tourist routings, where in years past, Bulawayo was part of tourist itineraries that included Hwange Game Reserve and the Victoria Falls – now accessed more cheaply from Zambia. 2011 Calendar showing the “Republic of Mthwakazi”, with Zimbabwe as a neighbouring state. The fringe Mthwakazi Liberation Front separatist movement is active largely outside of Zimbabwe, but their leadership in the country currently face a treason trial in Bulawayo. Undoubtedly, there are other towns around the country that could claim government neglect and decay, but what is relevant are the perceptions of Bulawayo residents, and how this is likely to play out nationally. Ethnic tensions are a daily reality in Bulawayo now, as this predominantly Ndebele‐speaking region perceives its neglect as both deliberate and ethnically driven. It is possibly no coincidence that the Mthwakazi Liberation Front (MLF) once more raised its voice in early 2011, calling for a separate state in the west of the country.36 While the majority of Bulawayo 35 Air Zimbabwe has been in crisis all year, with strikes and plane breakdowns, meaning essentially that there has been no air service to speak of between Bulawayo and Harare this year. 36 While the treason trial of Gwisai and others has received recognition nationally and internationally in 2011, there is a second treason trial currently under way in Zimbabwe – that of Paul Siwela and two others in Bulawayo. Siwela, president of the MLF, spent two months in jail without bail earlier this year, after allegedly distributing MLF pamphlets. The MLF is in fact more active in the diaspora than in Bulawayo currently – and burnt a Zimbabwe flag at a public gathering in Johannesburg earlier this year. The separatist movement in Matabeleland has a long history and is by no means a new 18