YANGON - THOUSANDS of anti-government protesters who thronged Myanmar's streets a year ago still want change but fear a repeat of the crackdown that left at least 31 dead, a spokesman for democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party said Friday.

On the first anniversary of the junta's suppression of mass demonstrations led by Buddhist monks, Mr Nyan Win of the National League for Democracy said tight security measures prevented any new protests taking place.

'My feeling on the anniversary is that I have seen people completely show their desire last year but because of the tight security this year people cannot demonstrate like this,' Mr Nyan Win told AFP. 'Human rights were violated here,' he said.

The protests began sporadically in late August 2007 over a hike in fuel prices, and slowly escalated.

The military regime finally launched a crackdown on September 26, opening fire on the crowds.

The United Nations has said that 31 people were killed in the crackdown, while 74 people remain missing and thousands were arrested.

Security has been tightened around Yangon over the past month, with army trucks and police posted at intersections across the city and night patrols outside monasteries.

State media and police reported a small bomb exploded Thursday outside a park in front of Yangon's City Hall, a scene of last year's protests, injuring seven people.

The NLD, led by detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, won elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power.

Myanmar has been run by the military since 1962. -- AFP