Two former IRA prisoners last night spoke at a meeting in west Belfast, organised by the dissident Republican group, the 32-County Sovereignty Committee.
About 60 people attended. RUC and British army Land-Rovers sat outside. Ms Bernadette Sands McKevitt said the Belfast Agreement would not lead to Irish unity. "What you see is what you get," she said. It was an attempt to copperfasten partition and legitimise British rule in Ireland, she claimed.
This generation of republicans had said they would end British rule and not pass on the struggle to their children, she said, and urged them to keep their word.
Withdrawal was the only thing the British had to contribute to the Irish people. Referring to Sinn Fein's acceptance of the agreement, she said it was unbelievable that fellow republicans would be upholding British laws in Ireland.
An expelled Sinn Fein councillor, Mr Francie Mackey, said if anyone had predicted four years ago that his party would enter Stormont, they would have been "laughed off the streets".
He urged republicans not to vote Yes out of loyalty to their leadership. They should be influenced by traditional republican beliefs, not personalities.
"We must be loyal to ourselves," he said.
Mr Mackey dismissed the argument that there was no alternative to the agreement. "The alternative to partition is a united Ireland. The alternative to British rule is freedom. There is no alternative to freedom and justice."
The former IRA prisoners who addressed the meeting were Mr Anthony McIntyre from west Belfast and Mr Tommy McKearney, from Co Tyrone, who are not members of the 32-County Sovereignty Committee.
Mr McIntyre described the republican leadership as "a failed leadership". "They described each strategic failure as a new stage of the struggle," he said.
For years Britain had been attempting to get a republican party to stop supporting or oppose the IRA and "unfortunately" they had been successful in terms of Sinn Fein.
Mr McIntyre said he was not a militarist. He accused the republican leadership of "using Section 31 against fellow republicans".
Mr McKearney said claims that the agreement would be transitional were bogus. There was a long and failed history of republicans going into partitionist institutions. They were inevitably swallowed up.