Sinn Fein has said the peace process is at its "point of deepest crisis" and there is no room for complacency or disunity among republicans. The party's Assembly member for west Belfast, Mr Alex Maskey, acknowledged that some republicans disagreed with the policies of the Sinn Fein leadership.
Addressing about 1,000 supporters at the Easter commemoration in Milltown Cemetery on the Falls Road, he said his party's critics were entitled to their opinions.
However, they had to acknowledge that the majority of the republican community supported the leadership who "have been there, done it, and never gone away".
In praise of the leadership's strategy, he said it had won unprecedented national and international support, and Sinn Fein was the fastest-growing party in Ireland.
Paying tribute to Provisional IRA members, Mr Maskey said: "Let no one call them fools or traitors."
An unmasked man read a statement from the Provisional IRA leadership, saying those who sought to defeat the paramilitary group would not prevail. The Provisionals remained committed to national independence.
Mr Maskey said republicans had stood up to the British government during the 1981 HBlock hunger-strike, and to "the great and the good". However, the lesson had been learned that republicans were not strong enough by themselves to save the hunger-strikers' lives and so new strategies were necessary.
His party remained fully committed to the peace process, but the British government was acting in bad faith and failing to deliver on its pledges in the Belfast Agreement. London's attitude was encouraging anti-agreement unionists, he claimed.
He questioned who was in charge in the North, "Downing Street, Ronnie Flanagan, or the generals in Thiepval Barracks?"
Sinn Fein cancelled its parades in rural areas of the North because of the foot-and-mouth crisis. In Belfast, Republican Sinn Fein and the Workers' Party also held commemorations in Milltown Cemetery.
A statement from the "leadership of the republican movement", which sources indicated was regarded as the Continuity IRA, was read out at the Republican Sinn Fein commemoration. It repeated its opposition to the Belfast Agreement and its commitment to ending British rule.
"The fight goes on not only in word but also by action," it said. In his address, the Republican Sinn Fein vice-president, Mr Des Long, accused the Provisional IRA of treachery over decommissioning.
Weapons had been acquired for the republican struggle and if the Provisionals were not willing to continue that struggle, they should hand the weapons over to those who would, he said.
At the Workers' Party parade, Mr John Lowry said paramilitary killings, "punishment" attacks, and pipe- and petrol-bomb attacks were seriously eroding the spirit of the Belfast Agreement.
Bitter, sectarian rhetoric at the Stormont Assembly was also causing despair and disillusionment, he added.
He acknowledged there were difficult issues to be dealt with, such as policing and decommissioning, but all the parties that signed the Belfast Agreement did so willingly and it was their responsibility to fulfil the agreement to the letter of the law.
The Sinn Fein vice-president, Mr Pat Doherty, told a small number of activists in Strabane that responsibility for the political crisis lay clearly with the Ulster Unionists and the British government.