High profile hostage Ingrid Betancourt was going to be freed this month, thanks to contacts with slain Colombian rebel leader Raúl Reyes, but a Colombian military strike against him botched her liberation, Ecuador's president Rafael Correa said Thursday.
After his announcement, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said he would follow Correa's lead and break relations with Colombia.
''We are breaking off relations because of the political terrorism being carried out by the government of Alvaro Uribe, not because of the Colombian people,'' Ortega said, referring to the Colombian president.
In an angry news conference in Managua, Correa accused Uribe of being a ''danger'' to the region and said the nation that most harbors terrorists is his. Uribe, Correa said, took advantage of contacts with Reyes that were made to arrange the freedom of 12 hostages this month to instead track and kill him.
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