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The family of the late President John Atta Mills has hit back at ex-President Rawlings saying they have soaked up the un-dignified insults against the late Prof. Mills for the past three years but are thus �provoked to face up to those whose minds continue to ferment such uncouth, derogatory, uncensored insults and from whose lips they spew." A statement signed by Abusuapanyin Nkuma-Kyerba Twidan on behalf of the family in response to comments by the ex-President said �Our Son died in a bed, at peace with himself, and with dignity in the eyes of equally well-thinking men. Such a kind fate may not befall those tempted to stride the world as rabble-rousing tin-gods.� According to him, the family has had enough of the constant attacks on the person of the late President Mills whose only fault, according to them, was seeking to serve his country. President John Evans Atta Mills died on Tuesday at about 14:15 GMT. The autopsy result is yet to be made public, but the former president told the BBC that President Mills had been battling with cancer that affected both his eye and his ear, and "he (Mills) couldn�t sustain it more than three hours per day." Mr Rawlings also told the BBC on the same day that �quite frankly I think that had he been advised and done something wiser earlier on, he could probably have survived for another six, seven months, I guess but it got too tight, it got extremely tight and the poor professor passed away.� But in a sharp riposte, Prof. JEA Mills' family said: �Our entire family wishes it be known that in the spirit of tolerance and peace, as consistently preached by the late Prof. Atta-Mills throughout his life,...three and a half years of insults we took and would have graciously forgiven as a tribute to the nature and legacy of the honourable man whose death Ghana and the world still mourns. But we deem it extremely provocative and almost impossible to ignore the direction of such un-dignified insults at an honourable man whose loss has turned our hearts as icy as his body that lies in the morgue.� The statement ended with a para-phrased adage to wit: �If a man climbs up a rotten tree, intending to make it his Castle, do not be tempted to join him or be drawn into an argument with him". Below is a copy of the statement issued by the late president's family.