History of Gibraltar the narrowest points in the Mediterranean, only from the coast of Morocco in North Africa. Its position on the bay makes it an advantageous natural anchorage for ships. As one writer has put it, "whoever controls Gibraltar also controls the movement of ships into and out of the Mediterranean. In terms of military and naval power, few places have a more strategic location than Gibraltar." The territory's area measures only . Most of the land area is occupied by the steeply sloping Rock of Gibraltar which reaches a height of . The town of Gibraltar lies at the base of
South African Congress of Democrats as a way to put its views directly to the white public. Moreover, as Nelson Mandela wrote, "The COD served an important symbolic function for Africans; blacks who had come into the struggle because they were anti-white discovered that there were indeed whites of goodwill who treated Africans as equal." Though COD was not itself a communist organization, many members of the banned South African Communist Party (SACP) joined the COD. COD never had more than 700 members and was based mainly in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Members of COD included: South African Congress of Democrats The South African Congress