THE BRITISH state has "permanent eyes and ears" inside armed republican dissident groups as a result of improved surveillance, a former IRA hunger striker has claimed.
Gerard Hodgins has been a vocal critic of Gerry Adams and has called on the New IRA, Continuity IRA and Óghlaigh na hÉireann (ONH) to declare ceasefires.
He said that recent dissident bomb attacks have had more impact in pushing voters towards Sinn Féin than they do in fulfilling the intentions of hard-line republicans.
Hodgins, who is a former prison comrade of the fellow IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, told the Guardian that the use of surveillance technology made conventional guerrilla warfare "exceedingly difficult".
He said: "The widespread use of this technology gives the British almost permanent eyes and ears in places the dissidents would frequent."
Directly addressing the anti-Good Friday Agreement armed republican groups, he said that the level of British infiltration of the Provisional IRA had been "colossal and fatal" for the "armed struggle" long before the peace process began.
Hodgins said the recent IRA and ONH bombings across Northern Ireland over the last 18 months, "played into Sinn Féin's agenda".
He added: "Sinn Féin will use the fear-factor to appeal to votes. So the occasional dissident bomb in Belfast city centre makes sure everybody votes according to tribal camp."
The west Belfast native last year publicly criticised Gerry Adams, calling for the Sinn Féin president to resign from the Bobby Sands Trust and accused him of lying about his relationship with his brother, the convicted paedophile Liam Adams.
In tune with the dissidents, Hodgins believes Sinn Féin's peace strategy has cemented the unionist veto over constitutional change in Northern Ireland, however, unlike them he opposes a return to violence.
Hodgins does not support the dissidents’ violent campaign and said: "The tactics and strategy they are trying to develop are tactics and strategy that we tried, but failed: the British can deal with these frames of reference.
“There is also no popular support for armed insurrection and without a support base armed insurrection is irresponsible."
Hodgins is a former Sinn Féin press officer who spent 20 days on hunger strike with other Irish republican prisoners in 1981.
He said the republican dissidents should learn from the failure of the Provisional IRA to force Britain to issue a declaration of withdrawal from Northern Ireland and that the ‘armed struggle’ would be unsuccessful.
"The infiltration was undoubtedly colossal and fatal. The British were regularly one step ahead of us on the ground making life difficult," he said.
"The dissident world is fractured over many groups, ranging from some misguided patriots to agents-of-the-state to outright rogues who are abusing my community rather than protecting it. But it is important to highlight the futility of pursuing a failed strategy," he said.
