By Judith Matloff

2012, BILBAO, Spain

Political violence was so rampant in the Basque Country in the mid 1980s that local journalists devised a pro-forma for the weekly bloodshed.

Fill in the blank: policeman/soldier/guard was killed/injured by a bomb/bullet. The one constant was that the separatist guerrillas, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA), always claimed responsibility.