Çevik Bir is a retired Turkisharmy general. He was a member of the Turkish General Staff in the 1990s. He took a major part in several important international missions in the Middle East and North Africa. He was born in Buca, Izmir Province, in 1939 and is married with one child. Çevik Bir is of Albanian origin. He graduated from the Turkish Military Academy as an engineer officer in 1958, from the Army Staff College in 1970 and from the Armed Forces College in 1971. He graduated from NATO Defense College, Rome, Italy in 1973. From 1973 to 1985, he served at SHAPE, NATO's headquarters in Belgium. He was promoted to brigadier general and commanded an armed brigade and division in Turkey. From 1987 to 1991, he served as major general, and then was promoted to lieutenant general. After the dictator Siad Barre’s ousting, conflicts between the General Mohammed Farah Aidid party and other clans in Somalia had led to famine and lawlessness throughout the country. An estimated 300,000 people had died from starvation. A combined military force of United States and United Nations were deployed to Mogadishu, to monitor the ceasefire and deliver food and supplies to the starving people of Somali. Çevik Bir, who was then a lieutenant-general of Turkey, became the force commander of UNOSOM II in April 1993. Despite the retreat of US and UN forces after several deaths due to local hostilities mainly led by Aidid, the introduction of a powerful military force opened the transportation routes, enabling the provision of supplies and ended the famine quickly. He was succeeded as Force Commander by a Malaysian general in January 1994. He became a four-star general and served three years as vice chairman of the Turkish Armed Forces, then appointed commander of the Turkish First Army, in Istanbul. While he was vice chairman of the TAF, he signed the Turkish-Israeli Military Coordination agreement in 1996. Çevik Bir became the Turkish army's deputy chief of general staff shortly after the Somali operation and played a vital role in establishing a Turkish-Israeli entente. Çevik Bir retired from the army on August 30, 1999. He is a former member of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa. On April 12, 2012, Bir and 30 other officers were taken in custody for their role in the 1997 military memorandum that forced the then Turkish government, led by the Refah Partisi, to step down. Çevik Bir, one of the generals who planned the process, said "In Turkey we have a marriage of Islam and democracy. The child of this marriage is secularism. Now this child gets sick from time to time. The Turkish Armed Forces is the doctor which saves the child. Depending on how sick the kid is, we administer the necessary medicine to make sure the child recuperates".
