BY NANCY SAN MARTIN

 CARMEN DE VIBORAL, Colombia -- For weeks, the leader of this mountain town had been secretly meeting with representatives of the country's second-largest leftist rebel group seeking a way to scale back the violence that has devastated area communities.

 Mayor Humberto Restrepo García and 22 other mayors from neighboring war-torn municipalities had reached an agreement in principle, but just as they moved to
 implement it this week, Restrepo and five colleagues were kidnapped Sunday by members of an opposing right-wing paramilitary organization. Following the apparent effort to intimidate them, they were set free Tuesday.

 Now, the deal worked out with the leftist National Liberation Army, or ELN, appears unworkable, and the death toll of a 37-year-old war that has claimed more than 200,000 lives promises to rise again.

 "Under the current circumstances and faced with our unjust kidnapping . . . we do not find the guarantees to allow us to continue developing direct contacts with the
 actors of the conflict to try to reduce its intensity,'' the mayors said in a statement made public Tuesday after their release.

 "We seek the humanization of the conflict,'' the statement said.

 "Our purpose has always been and will continue to be to contribute to the strengthening of institutions and to the defense of the communities.''

 The statement was signed by Restrepo and Juan Manuel Ochoa Giraldo, the mayor of Marinilla.

 The kidnapping, orchestrated by the far-right United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, allegedly was in retaliation for the agreement between the mayors and the leftist ELN.

 In addition to Restrepo and Ochoa, the others kidnapped were the mayors of Guatapé, San Luis, El Peñol and Granada. They were among 23 political leaders in eastern Antioquia province who in late October reached the accord with the ELN.

 Under the terms of the agreement, the ELN rebels vowed not to attack the towns for six months in exchange for the relocation of national police barracks to regions out of the center of towns following negotiations with the Colombian government.

 But the government of President Andrés Pastrana rejected the agreement, saying all talks with the 4,500-strong rebel group should be centralized under the leadership of peace commissioner Camilo Gómez.

 Meanwhile, in Havana Tuesday, Colombian government officials announced they would resume formal peace talks with the ELN, negotiations that had been frozen since August. Pastrana had halted the talks, saying the insurgents were not serious about launching a peace process.

 But after two days of unofficial contacts in Havana this week, the two sides agreed to go back to the bargaining table.

 The government is also engaged in on-and-off talks with the 18,500-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the country's largest and oldest insurgency, but those negotiations have been stalled since Oct. 17.

 About 3,000 Colombian civilians are taken hostage each year by the country's armed groups, which use kidnapping as another source of revenue.

 Special correspondent Sibylla Brodzinsky contributed to this report.

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