Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring Rwanda agreed on a plan to break up a Rwandan Hutu militia accused of being at the root of the conflict in eastern Congo.

An accord will be signed today on disarming the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, which occupies parts of North and South Kivu province, Congo’s Foreign Minister Alexis Thambwe Mwamba told reporters yesterday in Goma, the capital of North Kivu. The agreement will be signed by Thambwe Mwamba’s Rwandan counterpart, Rosemary Museminali.

“We have made a plan to render non-usable the presence of the FDLR in Congo,” Thambwe Mwamba said. “The plan only concerns those who refuse all the solutions that have been offered them.”

Diplomats are pushing to end the conflict in eastern Congo that flared in August, displacing a quarter of a million people. Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda, whose troops routed Congo’s army in 2 1/2 months of fighting, says he’s protecting his ethnic Tutsi minority from the FDLR, whose leaders are accused of killing 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

Rwanda has supported two rebellions in Congo, in an attempt to eradicate the FDLR, triggering two civil wars in the central African country between 1996 an 2003 in which 4 million people died.

During its six-year occupation of eastern Congo, Rwandan- backed rebels failed to eradicate the FDLR, which today number about 6,000, according to the United Nations. Rwanda, accused by Congo of supporting Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP, considers the FDLR a national threat.

‘Root of Insecurity’

“They are actually the root of all this insecurity that is around,” Museminali, who denies that Rwanda has any links with Nkunda, said yesterday.

Military operations won’t provide a permanent solution, FDLR military spokesman Colonel Edmond Garambe said.

“It’s better to pass by peaceful means, by negotiations,” Garambe said today in a phone interview from Masisi, 50 kilometers (32 miles) west of Goma.

“Rwanda must talk to us,” Garambe said. “We are their brothers.”

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked Belgium to send troops to support the UN Mission in Congo, known as Monuc, which has been unable to stop Nkunda’s advance. The UN Security Council last month approved 3,000 additional soldiers, to complement Monuc’s 16,500 peacekeepers. The UN force, the world’s largest peacekeeping operation, is spread across a country the size of Western Europe.

Congo’s army and the CNDP are reinforcing positions after heavy clashes slowed last month, Monuc military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich said.

The CNDP may attack Masisi to shore up its control of population hubs north and west of the embattled town, Dietrich said yesterday in an interview in Goma.

“We can see they are circling in on Masisi,” Dietrich said, adding that Monuc is reinforcing a base in the town.

To contact the reporter on this story: Franz Wild in Goma via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 5, 2008 04:49 EST