e protests, which lasted for weeks, shows Tunisians setting tires on fire and throwing stones at security forces who responded with tear gas. Traders in Ben Guerdane even engaged in a sit-in for several months, hoping to put pressure on authorities by suspending business and economic activities. In an attempt to quell the protests, Tunisian and Libyan border authorities reached an agreement after five days of talks in Libya. However, other Libyan actors not involved in the talks quickly and publicly rejected the agreement, claiming that it gave Tunisian traders a significant financial advantage over Libyans by effectively legalizing smuggling at the Ras Jedir border crossing.
The Need for a Broader Approach
Despite these difficult socioeconomic realities and this local resistance, international efforts have mostly focused on security-centric measures, such as hardening the border and cracking down on smuggling.
For example, under a $24.9 million grant awarded in 2016, the U.S. government’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) continues to install an electronic security surveillance system along a completed barrier that spans almost half of the border’s length. Over the last several years, Germany has been contributing to this effort, providing some $41 million for mobile observation and surveillance equipment. The barrier, constructed by Tunisia with the help of the DTRA, is composed of a system of obstacles, including sand banks, water-filled trenches, and fences.
Adding to this U.S.-German effort, the European Union is engaged in a number of assistance efforts on border security. On November 26, 2017, the EU Border Assistance Mission in Libya (EUBAM) presented a concept note that outlines its approach to border security and management reform in Libya. And more broadly, on February 14, 2018, the head of EUBAM, Vincenzo Tagliaferri, and the Libyan minister of justice, Mohamed Abdelwahed Abdelhameed, signed a memorandum of understanding formalizing their bilateral cooperation. This agreement expands EUBAM’s jurisdiction beyond borders to “substantiat[e] a solid foundation for the Rule of Law in Libya,” providing them a broader mandate to assist the Libyan Ministry of Justice and its dependent bodies. The EU has given EUBAM a sixteen-month, $20-million mission in support of the mandate. Additionally, EUBAM has held an Organized Crime Coordination Panel with the Libyan Ministry of Interior to coordinate the fight against serious, organized crimes, including smuggling and trafficking.
Engagement with Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) on smuggling is another facet of international border efforts. The NOC, a powerful stakeholder in Tunisia-Libya relations, has been vocal about the need to clamp down on fuel smuggling—both at the Tunisian border and throughout Libya. According to the NOC’s chairman, Mustafa Sanalla, fuel smuggling costs the Libyan economy over $750 million annually. In February 2018, Ghassan Salame, the UN secretary general’s special representative to Libya and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), met with Sanalla, agreeing to “work together to combat attempts by armed groups to gain a foothold in the Libyan oil sector and to increase transparency over Libya’s oil revenues.” The meeting was followed in April 2018 by the NOC’s announcement of a major anti-smuggling initiative, which has included marking fuel to provide evidence of smuggling; encouraging international sanctions against, and prosecutions of, smugglers; and promoting reforms of the Libyan subsidy system.
Yet bureaucratic and political fissures have surfaced in this effort: on August 14, a subsidiary of the NOC, the Brega Marketing Company, dissolved a committee that combatted fuel and gas smuggling in western and southern Libya (underway since 2015) and fired its head, Milad al-Hajrasi. This was followed by an announcement that the committee had in fact been an illegal front for smuggling and that al-Hajrasi was now under investigation—a move that provoked a raid by a Tripoli armed group on the Brega company’s offices and threat