As the crow flies, Tegucigalpa is just over 50 miles from the sea. So Brazil’s ambassador may have wondered why Honduran troops had pointed sonic weapons at his building and (very loudly) informed him in English that he was approaching a US warship in international waters:
This is a test of the Long Range Acoustic Device, LRAD, from American Technology Corporation. The LRAD can be used to hail and… This is a test of… Unidentified small boat. You are approaching a United States warship operating in international waters. Request you establish communications, identify yourself and state your intentions.
Perhaps the coup regime thought the ambassador was a Somali pirate who had got lost. In addition to repelling pirates and harassing embassies, the LRAD has previously been used by the US military in Iraq and, more recently, by the Pittsburgh police.
POSTSCRIPT: The video above comes from two videos uploaded to Youtube (Video 1, Video 2). It was presumably filmed on, or shortly after, September 22. I shortened them slightly and uploaded them to Youku, since Youtube is still blocked in China. It didn’t work. Readers may remember that I originally believed that Youku would not approve my compilation The Umbrella Men of Tiananmen. I was wrong. While Chinese liberals thought it was tragically funny but deeply embarrassing, nationalists thought it was a splendid display of patriotism and ingenuity on the part of the Armed Police. Youku immediately approved it. This video about Honduras, however, was almost immediately rejected. The reason given was the distinctly uninformative “because of the relevant regulations.” So now it’s on Yahoo instead.
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