TEGUCIGALPA -- For 74 days now, toppled Honduran President Manuel ``Mel'' Zelaya has slept in the library of the Brazilian embassy, where soldiers outside harassed their former commander-in-chief by barking like dogs, meowing like cats and blasting him with the Mexican ballad Two-legged Rat.

``The Brazilian embassy is a neo-Nazi concentration camp,'' Zelaya told The Guardian newspaper.

The president who was forced out at gunpoint five months ago put his fate Wednesday in the hands of the Honduran congress. By late Wednesday, a majority of lawmakers had voted not to let him finish his term, which ends Jan. 27. The final vote was 111 against Zelaya's reinstatement and 14 in favor, giving the 56-year-old former rancher few hopes of making his way back to the presidential palace.

Now he's likely to spend the rest of his mandate at the embassy, where clothes are washed by hand and canines sniff the food brought in.

THE OUSTER

The congressional debate came five months after the the military broke into Zelaya's house at dawn and ushered him to Costa Rica. Zelaya sneaked back to his country and holed up at the embassy, where the United Nations Security Council said he has been subjected to harassment.

``Confinement is always a very difficult situation, especially when you are defenseless, surrounded by hundreds of soldiers constantly pointing their weapons,'' said Carlos Eduardo Reina, the latest of Zelaya's advisors to abandon the embassy. ``Especially when you are being subjected to radiations, cellphone blockages, music at midnight, shrill noises that alter your ability to hear. So many things, so many things.''

Zelaya and about 300 of his followers rushed the embassy on Sept. 21. At first, the scene was chaotic. The light and water were cut off, and hundreds shared a handful of restrooms.

The number of people at the embassy quickly trickled to about 50, including five journalists. One of them fasted in protest and drank his own urine.

The president, the journalists and the presidential advisors slept on air mattresses while the rank and file caught winks on cardboard. The military issued arbitrary rules: They let food in and allowed used clothes -- but none new. No iPods or TVs.

They were entertained by board games they designed themselves and the never-ending supply of books about Brazil. A musical band formed, while an electrician rigged a universal mobile phone charger and fixed the sole TV.

``I wore the same clothes for a week,'' said Gerardo Valladares, a Zelaya backer who remained for 55 days. ``The worst part was the loud noise they blasted at us using some kind of sonic apparatus. This device is for use in open fields, and we were in an enclosed space. You had to open your mouth and cover your ears, but there was nowhere to hide from such a noise.''

Marco Girón, a physician who left the embassy two weeks ago, said the military harassed Zelaya and his followers in a variety of ways that affected their health. He said a strange globe with a hose attached was perched outside the window; Zelaya believed it piped in toxic gases.

Supporters wrapped Zelaya's room in foil to protect him from the radiation waves to block cellphones, which they believed were harmful.

ON THEIR NERVES

The loud noises and the signals they used to block the cellphone rattled their nerves, the doctor said. People started getting nosebleeds and having trouble hearing, Girón said. After a few days, Girón asked the United Nations to send in medical facemasks and hand sanitizer, because so many people were getting sick.