Former President Jerry John Rawlings has taken a swipe at Ghana’s Ambassador to Czech, Mr Victor Smith, for daring to caution him on his actions and utterances. The former President could not fathom why Mr Smith, a man he dismissed some three years ago through a text message, would ironically send him (Rawlings) a text message expressing concern about how he 'washes the party’s dirty linen in public.' Mr Rawlings was speaking to regional and constituency executives of the party in the Ashanti Region on Tuesday. According to Mr Rawlings the purported text message read: “Chief, Greetings from Prague, Ambassador Smith, I hope you will take the comments I am about to make on what you have said over the weekend in good faith. Chief, you have continued to raise pertinent issues to do with happenings in our party [and] government, but in my view we must adopt a better approach to dealing with the issues of grievances that we may have. Publicly chastising our president, the government and NDC party as you have been doing for sometime now, is certainly not the best. Most sincerely and in good faith.” Probably shocked by the message, Mr Rawlings said he forwarded the same text message to some party members. The message, Mr. Rawlings said, elicited a quick reply that read: “this guy (Victor Smith) must be locked up for amnesia,” from one of the members who received it. He said the Ambassador lacks the moral ground to pick on him for going public with internal party problems, saying Mr Smith had a field day “when he used the media to create the impression that he had rescued the party and Mills by diverting away from Rawlings" when he was still a special assitant. "Did he think he was doing right in the public domain with such a vicious and false allegation?” he asked. Mr Rawlings said he was now tired of talking about wrongs in the party, claiming several meetings he had with President Mills to iron their differences, and his insistence on President Mills to institute investigations into corrupt practices by his appointees have fallen on death ears. According to Luv FM’s Elton John Brobbey, the former president at a recent meeting in the Ashanti region with party executives called on NDC members to rise up and defend the values of the party in order to avoid electoral defeat in 2012. Story by Isaac Essel/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana